§ 1. Introductory. The history of Euboia during its occupation by the Latins is, according to Mr. Freeman, ‘the most perplexed part of the perplexed Greek history of the time.’ If we turn for information on the subject to Finlay, our one English authority on the period, we find no attempt at a consecutive account of it, merely some allusions; the history of Negroponte is a missing chapter in Finlay, which the present paper is an attempt to supply. It is also hoped that it will help to clear up some of the perplexities which beset the subject.Before Hopf the history of this island was almost a blank. Historical investigations concerning the Franks in Romania may be divided into three periods, represented by Ducange in the seventeenth century, Buchon 1825–1846, and Hopf 1850–1870. Buchon's publication of the (with which Ducange indeed had become acquainted, but not until his Histoire de Constantinople sous les Empereurs français had been published), his discovery of the Livre de la Conqueste in Brussels, the new documents, treaties and diplomas, which he brought to light, opened a new era and stimulated a fresh study of the ‘perplexed’ history. Nothing was required now but German diligence and exhaustiveness to ransack archives and fill up the gaps, and German accuracy to correct the slips made by that französische Nonchalance of which Hopf says even Buchon was occasionally (stellenweise) guilty.