A church dedicated to Saint George is known to have existed in the town during the Byzantine rule. Under the Lusignans and Venetians, Lefka served as a district capital, home to Frankish and Latin captains, barons and officers. The Lusignan royal family sought refuge in the town when Cyprus was attacked by the Mamluks in 1425. The town was home to a clean and simple inn in the Middle Ages, serving as a lodging place for those who visited the churches in Soli, Vouni, Solia and Maratasa in the Troodos Mountains. The count of Jaffa had a farm in the nearby Peristeronari. In the early 16th century, the town was recorded to be the centre of a "bailaggio" consisting of a group of villages. The land consisted of crown estates, and during the first three decades of the century, the peasant population multiplied, the amount of cultivated lands as well as the price for the lease of the estates increased, in line with demographic and economic trends elsewhere in Cyprus. Cultivation included sugar plantations on royal estates in the 14th and 15th centuries. Lefka and Morphou had been particularly chosen in the acquisition of royal estates for the profitable cultivation of sugar, being placed at the fertile western end of the Mesaoria plain.