194 benjamin arbel
unreliable.262 Venetian magistrates who served in overseas territories or
had served there in the past were requested to express their opinion on
the character and past performance of individuals who presented peti-
tions of various kinds.
The concession of noble status and noble titles was a measure taken
by all ancien régime rulers for building networks of loyalty, and Venice,
despite its Republican ethos, used this stratagem too, even with a cer-
tain generosity, which arguably was greater in the stato da mar than else-
where. These tactics sometimes combined the strengthening of links of
fidelity to the Dominante with a response to social changes in the stato da
mar. It is clearly reflected in the emergence of a new status of nobility in
15th-century Crete, including subjects who were not necessarily Venetians
and not necessarily Latins, as the old constitutional arrangements had
required. The process, which began by granting individual grazie, ended
up in 1463 with the transformation of the council of feudatories into the
council Cretan noblemen, which enabled a wider spectrum of Cretans to
take part in the local political scene.263 In the late 17th-century Morea,
where local elites on whom the Republic could rely were lacking, Venice
“imported” them from other areas by creating new titles of “counts” that
were awarded to worthy Greeks from Athens and Zante.264 Similar titles
were also given to several Dalmatian noblemen during the 18th century,
as a reward for their loyal services.265
Crete was a big colony with several towns, where economic and admin-
istrative activities brought new forces to the forefront of society in various
capacities but did not grant these forces the ability to enter the inner ring
of the noblemen and their councils. From the 16th century onwards (if not
earlier), it was possible for those Cretans, many of them Greeks, to receive
262 Pederin, “Die venezianische Verwaltung... und ihre Organe,” pp. 108, 122; Schmitt,
Das venezianische Albanien, pp. 47–71; Papadia-Lala, Ο θεςμός, p. 339.
263 Anastasia Papadaki, “Η κρητική ευγένεία στην κοινωνία της βενετοκρατούμενης Κρήτης,”
in Chryssa Maltezou, ed., Ricchi e poveri nella società dell’Oriente grecolatino (Athens, 1998),
pp. 305–18; Kostas Lambrinos, “Il vocabolario sociale nella Creta veneziana e i problemi
del censimento di Triv[is]an. Approcci interpretativi e desiderata di ricerca,” in Maltezou,
Tzavara, and Vlassi, eds., I Greci durante La venetocrazia, p. 184.
264 Malliaris, “Population Exchange,” p. 104.
265 Pederin, “Die venezianische Verwaltung Dalmatiens... (XVI–XVIII Jh.),” p. 220.
Pederin mentions the Medici (from Zara), the Casotti (from Scardona), and the Dragojević;
to whom we could add the Borelli from Zara, awarded the title of Counts of Aurana (Vrana,
later Wrana) in 1752.