For 380 years, from its conquest by King Richard I of England in May 1191 until the fall of Famagusta to the Turks in August 1571, Cyprus lay within the orbit of western European expansionism. A century before Richard's invasion, at the time of the First Crusade (1095–9), the Franks, or Latins as the occidentals were often known, had burst in spectacular fashion upon the lands around the eastern basin of the Mediterranean. Aflame with enthusiasm to wrest the Holy Places in Jerusalem from Muslim control, their determination reinforced by hope of salvation and lust for adventure, large numbers of knights and pilgrims had marched through Europe and Asia Minor and had conquered significant areas of Syria and the Holy Land. In their wake came settlers and merchants, and with their help the conquerors consolidated their hold on the territories they had occupied. But in 1187 the Muslims won back Jerusalem and most of the other western-held areas. Christian Europe responded with a new crusade, the Third. Among those who came to the East in this fresh expedition was King Richard the Lionheart, and in the course of his campaigns he added Cyprus to the lands under Latin rule.

In important respects Cyprus differed from the territories conquered during and after the First Crusade. The island had been a Byzantine province and so was won not from the Muslims but from Christian Greeks, and Cypriot society, although subject henceforth to western domination, remained largely Greek in culture, language and ritual.