Frankish rule (1204-1311)

The bad situation into which the city of Athens had been brought was worsened by the arrival of the Franks, who destroyed and pillaged churches and monuments and did violence to the population.

Athens was ceded to Otho de la Roche (1205-1225), who founded the dynasty of the Burgundian lords of Athens. The hegemony was seated in Thebes and included initially Attica, Boeotia, Megaris and later Nauplion (1210) and Argos (1212). Otho shared with his nephew Guy the rule of Thebes, which was annexed to his jurisdiction after 1210-1211. The duchy of Athens had four ports: Piraeus, Nauplion, Atalanti and Livadostro.

The Burgundians maintained their family fiefs for more than a century. Otho, after governing his acquisitions for twenty years approximately, returned to Burgundy leaving his nephew Guy (1225-1263) as his heir. The latter became known by his involvement in the strife for the Euboean succession (1256-1258) against William II de Villehardouin. In 1258 he was defeated with the Frankish coalition by William in Karydi, near Megara, and then went to Paris, where he received the title of the duke of Athens by the French king Louis IX (1226-1270).

His successor John ruled during the period 1263-1280. During the last decades of the 13th century the dominion of the de la Roche family expanded in Thessaly and Achaia. William de la Roche (1280-1287), seigneur of Livadia after his marriage to Helena Komnene Doukaina - daughter of the sebastokrator John of Neopatras - added to his fiefs cities of Thessaly as dowry, whereas in 1285 he was appointed bailo of the hegemony of Achaia. After his death in 1287, he was succeeded by his ten-year-old son, Guy II (1287-1308), the mother of whom became his guardian. The successor of Guy II and last representative of the Frankish rule in Central Greece was Gautier, son of Hughes de Brienne, second husband of Helena Komnene.