Passage: The maritime republics were city-states - the Mediterranean counterpart of the  Hanse towns of northern Europe. They were generally republics and formally independent, though most of them originated from territories once formally belonging to the Byzantine Empire (the main exceptions being Genoa and Pisa). During the time of their independence, all these cities had similar (though not identical) systems of government, in which the merchant class had considerable power.

Question: Who did most of these territories used to be controlled by?
Byzantine Empire