The Dynatoi in the Morea, 1400-1460

This is an entry for people who like lists.  Over the last several years I have collected all the names I can find of the dynatoi in the Morea, nearly 200 of them.   I wrote about this earlier. As you will see, I haven't completed tidying up the sources, and I have been adding and subtracting names as I try to refine my idea of dynatos.  The late Palaiologean administration was intensely inbred and conservative as you will see from the names. I do not include the names of kapetanioi  or Greek kefali after 1460, nor do I include the few Greek names from Venetian territories who are called archons.  These are all from the despotates. Google's software did not maintain my tidy columns, but perhaps you will find the names interesting.  People who don't like long lists of Greek names should perhaps stop reading here.

Angelos dead physician Mazaris 91 1416

Argyropoulos Ioannis emissary to Milan for Thomas PP4.247

Asan Ioannis Doukas Angelos Palaiologos Rallis Laskaris Tornikes Philanthropenos Megaspilion

Asan Ioannis/Giovanni elected in Albanian revolt [1453]

Asan Mathaios Palaiologos kefali Corinth for Demetrios PP4.265

Avouris Andreas Patras Ger.VI.19

Avouris Nikolaos Patras PP4.231. Ger.VI.22 [1440]

Basilikos Ioannis oikios, Constantine PP4.13

Basilopoulos Antonio Patras Ger.VI.19

Bessarion Basileios monk Mistra [1430s]

Bokhales Demetrios land bro. Nik Sath

Bokhales Manuel kefali Gardiki, escaped to Corfù Sphr. XL [1460]

Bokhales Theodoros blinded by Thomas Musachia 331

Bua Petro archon list 1454 list

Chalkokaïdis Ioannis Patras. Notary, chancellor for Thomas Ger.VI.25 [1456]

Chalkokondyles George fa. of Laonikos Cyr V ]1447]

Chalkokondyles Laonikos gifted young Athenian/Mistra Cyr V [1447]

Chandakenos Ioannis diakonos Ag. D, Mistra Z 2.318

Chatzikis Manuel Laskaris official for Constantine Mistra fresco [1445]

Cheilas Nikeforos Prinkeps Mistra monody [1433] [1448] [1452]

Christophoros officer in Frankish town near Koroni Cyr C

Christophoros metropolitan Koroni [1439]

Demetrios hegemon Nauplion letter from Amiroutzes

Demetropoulos Konstantinos landholder near Aigion #5345

Dermokaïtes Demetrios Palaiologos strategos Patras PP4.231 Pal #141 [1440]

Diplovatatzos archon list 1454 list

Dokeianos Ioannis Mistra Z 2.316

Dositheos metropolitan Monemvasia Z 2.278 [ca.1431]

Doukas Nikephoros Palaiologos Malakes owned medical ms Mazaris n90.3, 90

Doxas kefali Kalavryta, flayed Sphr. XL [1460]

Eleavourkos archon, fought Manuel, esc. to Nauplion Mazaris

Erastopoulos Theodoros Patras for Thomas Ger.VI.21 [1438]

Eudaimonoioannes Ioannis mesazon in Morea for Constantine Sphr. XXVII #6221

Eudaimonoioannes daughter married Mathaios Asan #6221

Eudaimonoioannes Nikolaos emissary for Manuel/fa of Ioannis #6223 [d. 1423] S 1.117 Th 1757

Eudaimonoioannes protostrator SM 4 f.2, Thiriet #2835.

Eugenikos Ioannis Mistra PP

Frangopoulina landholder, Vresthena & Chelidovouni #91772

Frangopoulos archon list 1454 list

Frangopoulos Demetrios landholder, Vresthena #91772 [1456]

Frangopoulos Leon protostrator, kefali Androusa Sphr.XVI. [1428]

Frangopoulos Ioannis protostrator, generali mou, stratopedarchos Marinescu 136. PP4 .. Eun.

Frangopoulos Manuel Th 1744 {1429]

Gemistos Andronikos oikios Demetrios, son of G.

Gemistos Demetrios oikios Demetrios, son of G.

Gemistos George oikios John, Th; judge PP4.173

George stratopedarches for Constantine, Karyopolis Cyr V

Gides Thomas Palaiologos Patras Sphr. XLVII [1460]

Georgios metropolitan Veligosti Z 2.284

Graitzas Andreas Palaiologos [unclear -Mouchli Ch 10: 51 Pal #181

Graitzas Constantine Palaiologos Salmenikon Pal #180

Graitzas Theodoros Palaiologos Venice son of Andreas Pal #181 [d. 1511]

Gregoras Demetrios Mamonas tower at Prinikon from Const. Z 2.200

Iagros Markos Palaiologos stratopedarchos, amb. to V Sath. 1.90

Isakios sebastos tzaousios, Geraki Philippides-Braat #83

Isidoros Bishop Monemvasia, Cardinal of Russia [1412-30] Eug. letter

Ispanos Nikolaos Mani PP4.15 [1440]

Ispanos Petros Mani PP4.15 [1440]

Ispanos Theodoros Mani PP4.15 [1440]

Ioachim metropolitan Patras Z 2.291 [early 15th]

Kantakouzenos Constantine son of I; kefali Vostitza for Con Cyr C [1447] [Count Pal/Lat.] #81

Kantakouzenos George Palaiologos (Sachatai) grandson of Matthaios PP4 . . . [1431] K#67

Kantakouzenos Ioannis Palaiologos kefali Corinth for Constantine Cyr V [1447] Sphr. XXVII [1446] #80

Kantakouzenos Manuel (Ghin) pseudespotes son of George #83

Kantakouzenos Thomas Cyr I [1444]

Kavakes archon list 1454 list

Kavakes Andreas V. gov for Mani Sathas 4:37 [1478]

Kavakes Demetrios Rallis Mistra, copyist to Italy Z 2.214

Kavakes Manuel S 1.126 [1422]

Kavakes Michael grant of property from Thomas PP4.239

Kladas Krokondylos(2) surr. Ag. Georgios, received Elos Sphr. XL [1460]

Kladas Thomas landholder, Mani Sathas 5.33

[Krokondylos Karitena Philippides-Braat #90]

Krokondylos opposed Manuel II Mazaris

Lampoudios kefali Astros [1407]

Lampoudios Mathaios sebastos Morea, then Florence Z 2.320

Laskaris Alexios Eug. letter

Laskaris Alexios Philanthropenos kefali Patras/informed Const. emp. Sph. XVII [1429] XXVII [1446]XXIX [1448]

Laskaris Athanasios oikeios; Venice, Ferrara for Asan/Dem PP4.266 [1450?]

Laskaris Demetrios Asan kefali Corinth for Constantine, Mouchli Cyr #1 [1444 Cor.,1445 M]

Laskaris Ioannis to Venice? Th 1362 [1410]

Lazaros first secretary to Thomas Sphr XXXVIII [1458]

Leodorikes Ch9.9 [1460]

Leontaris Andronikos Iorga 3.265 [1451] SM4m f68r

Leontaris Bochalis rebelled, blinded Chalk. 8.36.

Leontaris Demetrios Laskaris battle of Echinades encomium [1428]

Leontaris Demetrios Laskaris grandson of/ letter from Bessarion Z 2.334

Leontaris Manuel Bryennios Kyriakides [1438]

Liminetis Nicholaos notary, Mistra Z 2.318

Loukanes Nikeforas Corinth, surr. to Mehmed Sphr XXXVIII [1458] d.1460

Malachies metropolitan Corinth Z 2.295 [1446/7]

Malakes Nikeforas Doukas Palaiologos (Chalivoureas) dr at Mistra Mazaris 65 Pal #190 [1415]

Mamonas Demetrios Gregoras Prinkipas from Constantine PP4.17

Mamonas Gregory Palaiologos Monemvasia, bro.-in-law Sphrantzes Sph. V Pal #163 [d. 1407]

Mamonas wife of GP sister of Sphrantzes Sph. V

Mamonas Paul fa. of Gregory megas doux? Loenertz short chron.

Markos metropolitan of Corinth, raised with Sph Sph. XXVI

Matthaios Bishop, Gortynia Philippides-Braat #87 1427/8

Mavropapas archon list 1454 list

Melikes Manuel Rallis bridge at Karitena Philippides-Braat #89 1439/40

Melikes Helene Asanina Palaiologina wife of MRM Philippides-Braat #89

Melikes Matthaios Asan Palaiologos Rallis arg.l for Mantinea Z 2.201 Sath. 5.35

Melissinos Nicholaos son of Nik Z 2.112

Melissinos Nikephoros protostrator, kefali Androusa Z 2.112

Matthaios metropolitan of Lakedaomon Z 2.286 [ThII]

Methodios metropolitan Lakedaimon F/F Z.2.286 [1439]

Michael sakellarios, musician, Mistra Isidore 22 n.d.

Moschos Demetrios scholar Mazaris n70.9

Moschopoulos Ioannis Th1115 [1405]

Moulgarios kefali Sikyon Ch7.27 [1446]

Neapolites Nicholaos notary, then judge, Patras Ger. 216, 226 [1430/40]

Neilos metropolitan Lakedaimon Tito 294 {1409]

Nikon metropolitan Vresthena Philippides-Braat #81

Padiates Andronikos Laskaris kefali, Androusa under Const. Sphr. XVII.3 1429

Padiates Alexios Laskaris kefali, Vostitza under Const. Sph. XVII.3 1429

Pagomenos archon list 1454 list

Palaiologina dau George Kant/wife Nic. Pal #87 [?1460]

Palaiologina Aikaterina wife of Thomas

Palaiologina Hypomone nun at Peplinitza PP4.239

Palaiologina Kleope Malatesta wife of Theodoros II [d.1433]

Palaiologina Theodora wife of Constantine [d.1429]

Palaiologina Theodora Asanina wife of Demetrios

Palaiologos Christoforos Asan Iorga 2.8 [1438]

Palaiologos Constantine despot

Palaiologos Demetrios despot

Palaiologos George fa-in-law of Bokhales. mesazon PLP 21447

Palaiologos Helena Asan m. Manuel Rallis Melikes

Palaiologos Ioannis kefali Mani for Constantine Cyr 5 Pal #164

Palaiologos Ioannis Kantakuzenos Patras for Thomas/Constantine Ger. VI.21 [1438]

Palaiologos Manuel/Nikolaos handed Monemvasia to V #88

Palaiologos Manuel buried at Brontocheion [d.1423]

Palaiologos Manuel phrourarch Monemvasia-Pope Pal #183 [1460]

Palaiologos Michael kefali of Vassilicata for Constantine Ger. VI.17 [1430]

Palaiologos Theodoros II despot

Palaiologos Thomas despot

Paraspondylos Isaak protostrator Sathas 5: 34 [1466]

Paraspondylos Zoe sister, wife of Demetrios Palaiologos

Pepagomenos Demetrios doctor monody [1433]

Pepagomenos George son of Demetrios Eugenikos letter [1436?]

Pepagomenos Nikolaos son of Demetrios Eugenikos letters [1436?]

Philanthropenos archon list 1454 list

Philanthropenos Alexios Laskaris kefali Vostitza, kefali Patras Z 2.332 [1437/8]

Philanthropenos George

Philanthropenos Manuel cousin Man.II, amb. to V Th. 1758 [1420]

Plousiadenos Ioannis metropolitan Methoni Z 2.280 [14792-50]

Proinokokokas defender of Kastritzi, flayed Sphr. XL: 5.

Prosphonematikos Joseph letter to Demetrios PP4.211 [1450?]

Pyropoula wife of Thomas

Pyropoulos Thomas oikios Constantine PP4.14

Rallis prisoner of Carlo Tocco Tocco3633

Rallis Monemvasia PLP #24099

Rallis Andronikos Palaiologos emigre Taranto moved to Methoni, Corfù [1469]

Rallis George Palaiologos emigre Taranto Sphr XXXIX Pal #195 [1458]

Rallis Ioannis built mill on V territory [1430]

Rallis Ioannis Oises carries message to Milan, pope for Th. PP4.242 [1460] Sphr. XLI

Rallis Manuel Oises archon list, kefali Androusa 1454 list

Rallis Michael Oises fought with Venetians, impaled Sphr XLIII [1466]

Rallis Paul emigre Taranto Pal #195

Rallis Thomas landowner; attacked Sphrantzes Sphr. XIX

Raoulaina wife of George/dau. George Kantakuzenos #86 [?1460]

Rhosatas Ioannis Patras PP4.231 [1445] Sph. XIX [1429]

Sarantaris Antonios hegoumen, Artokosta, Kynouria Philippides-Braat #85

Sebastopoulos Nikolaos protostrator for Thomas Sphr. XXXIX [1458]

Serapion monk at Mistra Eugenikos, PLP#25169.

[Sgouromalles] archon list 1454 list]

Sgouromalles Mathaios Palaiologos surr Karitaina, bro. wife of Loukanes Z 2.215 Sphr XL [1460] Pal #177

Solianos son of George stratopedarchos Karopolis, Mani Cyr V

Sophapoulos Nikolaos land, Mani Sath. 7.XIII

Sophianos archon list 1454 list

Sophianos Manuel emigre to England [same?] Harris 1467

Sophianos Manuel Asan carries message to Mantua for Thomas PP4.238

Spanopoulos Constantine landowner, Patras Ger. VI.16

Spanopoulos Ioannes Patras Ger.VI.19

Sphrantzes Alexios son of G & H, died 8/1448 Sphr. XXVIII

Sphrantzes George kefali Patras, Elos, Mistra Sphr. XVI.7 1428/9

Sphrantzes Helene Palaiologos Tzamplakon Sphr. XXIV [1438] Pal #126

Souliardos Michael Ag. Moni/Areia Z 2.304 [1489]

Stamatelos son of Patras, wounded by Sphrantzes Sph. XVII

Tarchianotes Ioannis Mistra -- w. Bessarion in Rome Harris [ca. 1458]

Trivolis Demetrios copyist Mistra Z 2.21

Tzamplakon Ioannes Palaiologos carries message from Florence to Thomas PP4.246 [1455]

Tzamplakon Kavallarios oikios of Manuel, senator Mazaris 10

Tzamplakon Kyonides with Thomas against Demetrios Sphr XXXIX:5.

Xanthopoulos Demetrios document from Demetrios Palaiologos #91772, Vranoussi 1980: 350

Xanthopoulos Ioannis document from Demetrios Palaiologos #91772, Vranoussi 1980: 350

Xanthopoulos Michael document from Demetrios Palaiologos #91772, Vranoussi 1980: 350

The Dynatoi

The dynatoi at dinner.
Outer narthex of the Katholikon,

Vatopedi Monastery, Mt. Athos.

In Emperor or Manager: Power and Political Ideology in Byzantium before 1453, Antonia Kiousopoulou has collected a list of 80 court officials and 44 ambassadors for Constantinople in that period. Twenty-five, or 17%, of these have the name either of Palaiologos or Kantakuzenos or of both, and fifteen more, or 28%, have other imperial names. Twenty-four, 16.6%, have the names of archons on the list of Moreotes giving allegiance to Mehmed. Some of the names on Kiousopoulou's lists overlap, but that reinforces her point:  the administration of the Eastern Empire depended on comparatively few people, used over and over .

I have made attempts at a similar list for the 15th-century Morea up through 1460, though not classified by position, and have compiled a preliminary, experimental list of 172 individuals who could be considered the dynatoi of the Morea in the fifteenth century -- archons, court officials, church officials, landholders, and wives. The 39 individuals with names from the archon list (twelve individuals, thirteen names) count for 22% of the total (another indication of the representative status of the group which made an arrangement with Mehmed), while 35 individuals named Palaiologos and 20 with other imperial names (Angelos, Asan, Doukas, Kantakuzenos, Laskaris) count for 31% (Kiousopoulou has 28%). 

The largest number of non-imperial names is the 10 Rallades (some were first cousins of the Palaiologos brothers). These groups overlap, and some individuals have names from more than one category or imperial families , while one extraordinary name has five imperial and four archon components (Ioannis Doukas Angelos Palaiologos Rallis Laskaris Tornikes Philanthropenos Asan who died young, commemorated in a burial icon at Megaspilion, now destroyed). There are two imperial names out of the thirteen on the archon list. Again, this is by no means intended to be a definitive list of names, but it gives a broad indication of how power clotted within a self-reinforcing group of individuals.

I doubt that I could put together a list of even 50 names of non-dynatoi Greeks from the same period.

Writer after writer in the last 80 years of the Morea mentioned the rapaciousness and brutality of the dynatoi. Gemistos gave them the responsibility for the pathetic condition of the Morea. Bessarion thought there were a few good men among the dynatoi, but that their efforts were far outweighed by what the rest had done.  Michael Choniates was writing on the same topic 250 years earlier.  I will not continue on that theme now: I have written about their actions in a draft chapter for my book.

I have found a single effort toward change.  When Constantine made Sphrantzes governor of Mistra, he said:

You are to stay here and govern your command well. You are to put an end to the many instances of injustice and reduce the power of the numerous local lords. Make it clear to everybody here that you are in charge and that I am sole lord (ὡς ἐμὲ μόνον αὐθεντην).

We know nothing about what Sphrantzes did.

Cities

Idealized city walls, Pantanassa, Mistra

I have been trying to get a portrait of the cities of the Morea in the fifteenth century.  City, in this case, indicates the presence of walls, the position of bishop who may reside elsewhere, a market, craftsmen, some kind of local administration with a governor or his representative, and possibly a few foreign merchants or their agents. One can make no assumptions about size or architecture.

The port cities -- Patras, Clarenza, Corinth, Kalamata, Methoni, Koroni, Nauplion -- were small and shabby (possibly Monemvasia was an exception early in the century), and the interior cities -- Mistras, Mouchli, Leontari, Longaniko, Nykli, Mostenitza, Andravida, Chalandritsa -- were small. As a comparison, fifteenth-century Italy -- admittedly the most urbanized area of Europe -- had more than 90 cities with a population of 5000 or more. In the Morea, none is likely to have had more than 2000. 

A Latin memo of 1437 reported that the Morea had 30 cities, 200 of the strongest fortifications, and 400 villages: this was propaganda to encourage aid for Greece and cannot be used for court evidence. Pero Tafur, seeing Corinth in the 1430s, said that it was much depopulated. In the Ottoman cadaster of 1460-1463 it had 392 households, or about 1400 people, making it the largest city in the cadaster which represented between 1/3 and 1/2 of the population of the Morea. The other "large" cities in the cadaster were Vumero with 242 households, Ag. Georgios with 242, and Leondari with 204. All of them were larger than Argos with 115 households in 1450, fewer than 200 households a generation later in 1480.  (I have been using 4.2 as a multiplier for households to get the population.)

Tafur reported Clarenza depopulated, though it had apparently been a small city at best: in the 1390s it had only 300 households. Tafur was there in 1437 and there was some rebuilding and refortification just after 1441. Mistra is unlikely to have had as many as 2000 people within the walls on that steep hillside -- Tito Papamastorakis thinks only 1000 after comparing maps of the excavations with Venetian maps of 1700 and the population then of under 1100 -- and it was a heavily masculinized city primarily of monasteries and church administration.    The former Frankish capital of Andravida had 36 inhabitants. In 1460 Mouchli and three outlying villages accounted for 105 households, or fewer than 500 people.

Minio suggests an unprepossessing Nauplion -- "the best house that I could manage, considering the condition of the place." Casola found Methoni with its 2000 inhabitants shabby, the houses of wood, the cathedral impoverished, and said that, "in the finest and widest street there, the houses appeared to be shut up for the most part, and when I stood in the market place I did not see many people." Even late Byzantine Athens had grain fields within the city walls, and in 1395 was said to have been a town of 1000 houses. If so, it was larger than anything in the Morea -- except, again, Monemvasia. Fortifications were often mud-brick and rubble, like the city wall of Argos, or the outer wall of Nauplion at the Ottoman attack in 1463. 

It is a depressing image of the Morea, but one could hardly expect better of cities in a culture whose archons occupied themselves by raiding the food resources of other cities.  The Ottoman raids are blamed for much, but they cannot bear all the blame here. 

 Idealized city from the Kariye Djami

Bessarion calls for a crusade

Cardinal Bessarion, detail from manuscript.

In 1458, Mehmed entered the Morea to obtain surrender of the territories formerly held by Constantine.  Corinth, Kalavryta, and Patras were surrendered to him.  He left the Morea ostensibly under the control of Thomas and Demetrios Palaiologos who were to pay him tribute.  Their incoherent administrations were fighting among themselves with adherents changing sides while Thomas clawed for the ascendency.  In 1459 in Italy, the newly-elected Pius II called a congress at Mantua for the purpose of forming an alliance of Christian princes against the Ottomans.  Cardinal Bessarion was given heavy assignments toward this goal.  In May of that year he wrote a letter about the proposed crusade to Fra Jacopo de Marchia, a Franciscan professor. It took four and a half more years before the crusade sailed in August 1464.

Bessarion decribed the Morea as a land flowing with milk and honey, but he had not been there for 25 years. Some of his numbers are extraordinary, though the Isthmus is all right, and they should be taken not as untruthfulness but as a measure of his desire for its recreation as the heart of a restored Eastern Empire. I am not convinced of his view of Thomas, but he was trying to rally the troops.****

This is my draft translation of part of the letter:

 * * * * *

In Greece there is also this large province, commonly called Morea, about 800 miles in circumference, with most the most fruitful, fertile fields and a great abundance of everything, not only providing that which is necessary for human use, but also for producing bread, wine, meat, cheese, wool, cotton, linen, silk, kermes, cochineal, small berries for making dye. Everything is found in abundance.  Grain is two stera for one ducat .  . . wine costs nothing, eight castrones a ducat.** Hay and straw for horses without number so that, in addition to the inhabitants and locals of the place, the country can feed 50,000*** horsemen without having to get food from any other source. Last year the Turks came in with 80,000 mounted soldiers, and innumerable foot and wagons, and they stayed five months and still had an abundance of food, and even after they left everything was very cheap, so abundant is everything.

Further, it is almost an island, its shape is round and large and full, surrounded by the sea, with a narrow branch by which is it connected to the mainland, a width of six miles, by which protection the whole country is secure.  Also, the cities which it has, are almost 300, walled, very strong and very well fortified; also, innumerable animals, and a generous supply of men. Also, it is well situated, for Italy, Sicily, Crete and the other islands, Turkey, Albania, and Macedonia, and other parts of Christendom, so that, if it is in Christian hands, it could be the means of major attacks on the Turks and a great use to Christians: if it is in Turkish hands, it would threaten great danger to Christians.  


Such, therefore is the land which the Turkish infidels almost completely occupy. Last year they entered it with a great force, in a betrayal by evil men, except for a few places, in which the lords of those places, who are both brothers of the lord, the emperor of the Greeks, the brother dead in the Constantinople war, received him.  But this year, in January last, God resuscitated the spirit of one of those lords, Thomas Palaiologos, despot of the Morea, and he took up arms against the infidels for his own liberty and that of his people, and within two months he recovered all the lost places.  Blessed be God!  The thing is great and wondrous, and was and is a miracle, and it holds out to us great hope for future things, so long as we understand how to use it well!



* In 1480, Bartolomeo Minio expected Argolid grain to be 3 stera for a ducat.
**  Castrones: castrated goats.  
***The largest semi-reliable number we have for horsemen is 10,000 in 1417 under John Palaiologos against the Principality of Achaia.  It comes from a Venetian chronicle.  A more reliable number is a Venetian document of 1418 which gives 6000.  Neither Plethon nor the Cronicle of the Morea expected more than 6000 at any one time, and in 1444 John VIII said there were 6000.
**** In fact, when the crusade actually came off, the Venetians had to arrange for Thomas to be told that he was not going with them.

Under the shade of Your Signoria

15th C Venetian lion, Negroponte

Last March at the Renaissance Studies Association, there was a series of panels on the Venetian stato da mar.  In a discussion on terminology, I suggested that  "protectorate" might appropriately be used at times to describe Venetian rule. I was told firmly that "protectorate" was unacceptable -- without being allowed to offer any evidence, and several people used the word "oppression" conflating the many varieties of administration in the stato da mar with that of Crete and going along with various trends in "post-colonial" studies.

Now a certain amount of oppression is in the eye of the beholder, and I think you have to accept that nearly everyone in the 15th century was, in 21st century terms, oppressed by someone else.  But the Venetian città or terre in the Morea, which is the part of the stato da mar on which I feel entitled to make pronouncements could not have survived with very much comparative oppression happening at all.  The ratio of Venetians to Greeks was very small indeed, and Greeks oppressed by Venetian rule were perfectly capable of voting with their feet and going to the Greek-ruled Despotate.

What you find is the opposite.  They slipped into Venetian territory on occasion and the Despotate regularly asked for them to be returned.  Venice tended to respond that all were welcome in Venetian terre. Massive evidence from the mid-1300s through the Ottoman conquest describes persistent exploitation, raiding of, and violence against Greeks in the Despotate by Greek archons, and the arbitrary infliction and collection of taxes. They raided Greeks in Venetian territories, too, and you get a snapshot of such an event in the Argos petition. 

You see Despots occasionally remitting taxes on the archons and frequently on Monemvasia and on monasteries, but never on those who worked the land and who paid their taxes to the archons.  A. Kontogiannopoulou has a horrific article in the 2009 volume of Revue des Études Byzantines detailing the tax burden extracted by the last Palaiologues. In contrast, quite a few edicts from Venice lift various traditional taxes on the land-working class for the terre of Methoni, Koroni, Nauplion, and Argos, and what you see over and over in the letters of Bartolomeo Minio is Venetian pacification of the Greek and Albanian residents, not oppression.

We have a number of instances in which people ask to be taken under Venetian protection, "under the shade -- sub umbra -- of Your Signoria" which my imagination, because of that wonderful lion above, changes to "under the wings of your lion." Here are some:

In 1388 citizens from Nauplion asked for Venetian rule as protection from Nerio Acciauoli, tirannus crudelissimus -- they had come into the hands of a young woman who probably had never seen Nauplion and who certainly could have given no protection (Venice wanted Nauplion anyway). In the summer of 1423, Adam de Melpignano, a baron of Achaia, asked to be taken into Venetian protection, as did Rosso Bua, leader of an Albanian clan.  In 1426 Theodoros II Palaiologos asked Venice to take the whole Morea under its protection. In 1428, Archbishop Pandolfo of Patras asked Venice to protect Patras against the Despotate. In 1456 Demetrios Laskaris Asan asked Venice to take over the territory of Mouchli, which Venice refused to do -- it was too far inland, and he had already given it to Mehmed in 1454.  At the same time Athens asked for Venetian protection-- also no go, and Joannis Spagnoli asked for protection of Damala, Fanari, and Ligurion.  Venice took those: Fanari and Damala were on the coast and Ligurion was a nice bridge between the coast and Nauplion territory. 

In 1465 archon Petro Bua put his territory and people under Venetian protection -- this was early in the Venetian-Ottoman war, and at the same time the Greeks governed by Micheli Rallis asked for Venetian protection from Rallis' harshness, as did the town and castle of Longanico. A group of Moreotes who took refuge on Tocco-ruled Zante during the war put up the flag of S. Marco in the face of an Ottoman assault. The Kladas brothers put Vordounia under Venetian protection, and when Kladas declared his private war against the Turks in October 1480, he carried the flag to claim that protection.  Much earlier, in 1410, Mauricius Spata used it in Arta.

It worked better at some times than others, and I am not arguing for Venetian benevolence in the stato da mar, though when you track through the records of the families of Greeks and Albanians who died for Venice and look at Venetian generosity to their children and grandchildren the word seems quite reasonable.  I am arguing for a more responsible use of evidence.  I go back to Bartolomeo Minio.  He was keenly aware of the burdens Venice placed on the people in Nauplion territory, and when he had to call a corvée, he labored with them, carrying stone and lumber.  He wrote, "I want to do what I can to help these poor people."  And he was remembered, 150 years later, in Greek tradition, as a protector:

At that time, the governor of the place, that is, the Venetian, with all the people of Nauplion, did all the building, and built the walls around, just as they appear today . . . and the governor of the place, the Venetian, gave benefits and many gifts . . .

Τότε ὁ Ἀφεντὴς, ἤγουν ὁ Βενετζιάνος, μὲ τὸν λαὸν ὃλον τοῦ Ἀναπλίου, ἔκαμε πᾶσαν οἰκονομίαν καὶ ἔκτισαν τριγύρον τὰ τείχη, καθὼς φαίνονται ἒως τὴν σήμερον . . . καὶ ὁ Αφεντης` τοῦ τόπου ὁ Βενετζιάνος ἔδοκεν εὐγερσίας καὶ χαρίσματα πολλὰ τῶν Χριστιανῶν ὅπου ἧρχονταν ἀπὸ ἐκατοικοῦσαν μέσα εἰς τὸ Ἀνάπλι καὶ ἔδωκε καὶ ταῦτην τήν χάριν.

These I have shored against my ruins

 

This is one of the five bookcases in my workroom, one of at least twenty-five or so in the house, but it is difficult to be definitive because a couple of rooms have them on three or four walls and under the windows. These are our warmth against the chill of an increasingly vulgarized culture, our tools, and our companions.

The bookcase closest to my desk hold books most used for current work -- several by friends, and the 15th-century historians: Sphrantzes, Doukas, Kritobulos, Chalkokondyles.  And of course, other things have fetched up there, like a stack of dissertations on top. The middle bookcase is books on Nauplion, Athens, Mistra, and Crete, plus 3 shelves of dictionaries, and one of other peoples' offprints. And other things.

 Some Athens, and a reminder of my roots.

The one nearest the door, the one pictured at the top, is art and architecture, while behind me and bumped when we open the door is Pierre's enormous collection of Greek texts.  The fifth is small and has more library books, books that should be shelved somewhere else, files and books for the next shared writing project.  Inter-library loan books unstack themselves on the floor among seven file boxes. There is also a bed, usually blanketed in books, so it hardly counts as a bed, though I managed to get it usable for visits from Nick Nicholas and Michael Pettinger, my authorities for medieval Greek and Latin.

My reminder from Theocritus: "It is not easy to find."
The "emeralds" are a 32-year family joke.

The floor has a very nice Persian-style carpet, though the degree of niceness is irrelevant as it is mostly covered by the boxes of files I am using for the Kladas book* which is processing slowly but surely.  Slowly, because I have been surprised by time.  Slowly, because I have written several long articles in the past year, most on material that I use in the book, and four speeches.  Slowly, because the fifteenth-century Morea was such a spirit-sucking culture that I find myself frequently drained. The accepted level of peacetime violence, the frequency of plague, the exploitations by the archon class, the corruption of a church organization that possessed one-third of the land and thus removed it from the tax base, the cultural misogyny, the evident despair of the Palaiologoi and their withdrawal from responsibility (always with the exception of Constantine), the dreariness of the Mistra intellectuals who could do little more than harp on the Procession of the Holy Spirit, the Ottoman threat always present like a bad smell in the drains --these devour psychic energy and must have done so in the fifteenth century.

 Yeats wrote:

Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

.

 John, the Merbaka Virgin, the Palaiologoi,
a horseshoe from the barn my great-grandfather built in Alabama,

and my dear Ephraim Boms,** in a coma in Athens since September.

Nevertheless, I now know the Palaiologoi  at least as well as my own family.  Kladas I know no better than I did when I first wrote about him in my dissertation 13 years ago.  I have found previously unused information, and I have evolved ideas I have seen nowhere else, but the man himself resolutely remains a stranger to me.  I have gained no access to him through his peers though I have become admiring of Petro Bua. I have a sense of Demetrios Asan and Manuel Rallis, despite their repugnant personal activities; I have a certain sympathy, though dislike, for Demetrios Palaiologos, and a deep affection for Demetrios Pepagomenos. The great Bessarion, Cyriaco of Ancona (after all I have written about Cyriaco, I have no sense of him, either), and Giovanni Dario, have become my private Trinity.***  But there is a shell surrounding Kladas -- perhaps in compensation.

* The Knight and Death: The Kladas Affair and the Fifteenth-Century Morea.

** Ephraim Boms, after nearly a year in a coma, died on August 7, 2011. A Reader at St. Paul's Anglican Church in Athens, he had been preparing to study for ordination as a minister.  He leaves a wife, and daughter and son in Nigeria.

*** I notice that these are all people for whom I have contemporary portraits, though Cyriaco looks nothing like I had pictured him.  I wonder how much that matters?