The Latin communities in the east were composed predominantly of minority groups of westerners settled, permanently or temporarily, in the eastern Mediterranean, largely in consequence of earlier movements of Latin expansion. The cosmopolitan world of scattered Levantine ports and islands was united by its seas, by its shipping and by the extensive trade which the Latins moved across them. Latin Levantine outposts and activities depended for their survival upon an overall naval superiority which Ottoman or Mamluk fleets could seldom match. The southern Levant trade was not a Venetian monopoly but Venice increasingly assumed the predominant role in it after about 1410, while the hitherto considerable presence of Genoese, Catalans and other westerners diminished. The Latins on Cyprus reserved political power and fiscal advantages to themselves, maintaining a social distance from the Greeks which was rooted in religion and culture. In the Levant the Turks normally expelled Latin settlers while reaching accommodations with the Greeks.

The process of Ottoman expansion was halted by the Anatolian campaign of the Mongol khan, Timur. The Ottoman Empire disintegrated in Anatolia as the various Turkish states, which had been annexed by the Ottomans, were restored by Timur to their previous lords. The Christian states, particularly the Byzantines, the Venetians and the Wallachians, tried to secure maximum advantage from the division of the Ottomans by supporting one prince against the others. Dynastic clashes and social upheaval were to continue within the Ottoman Empire until 1425. The civil wars gave the opportunity to the Turkish emirs to move against the Ottomans. About 1430, the Ottoman state had sixteen provinces in Anatolia and twelve in Rumelia. Agriculture, constituting the basis of the Ottoman economy and the financial support of the army, was closely connected to the timar system. Murad II was generally described as a ruler who preferred peace to war.