100 Gasparis
or part of the fief, whether they occurred on account of bequests, sales or
exchanges.33
From the start, the registers of fiefs were arranged by geographical territory:
as is shown by the surviving ones, the central territories around Candia were
listed by sexterium and the other areas were listed by turma.34 A separate regis-
ter, complementary to that of the fiefs was devoted entirely to the redistribution
of the fiefs and the determination of their borders. The catasticum divisionum
or quaternus bumbicinus divisionum recorded specifically and systematically
all the subdivisions of fiefs or parts of fiefs, along with the new borders as they
were determined by each new distribution. Many of these entries were also
copied into the registers of fiefs, both to assist those who had recourse to them
but also to ensure that the information was copied and preserved.
Finally there existed a separate catasticum borgesiarum which listed infor-
mation concerning the plots of land and houses of Candia and the other towns
of Crete; these could be parts of larger fiefs or be fiefs in their own right.35 If
the urban property was part of a larger fief, then the information concerning it
would also be listed in the registers of fiefs, under the fief ’s original entry.
The Frankish Dominions
One of the oldest Frankish regimes in former Byzantine lands was the kingdom
of Cyprus, which was founded at the end of the 12th century as a result of the
33 On the organisation of the registers of fiefs, see Charalambos Gasparis, Catastici Feudorum
Crete: Catasticum sexterii Dorsoduri. 1227–1418, 2 vols. (Athens, 2004); and Catastici
Feudorum Crete: Catasticum Chanee. 1314–1396 (Athens, 2008).
34 Sexterium was an administrative unit in the city of Venice and the term was used by the
Venetians to organise the first group of colonists sent to Crete in 1211. In Crete sexterium
was a simple geographical unit used only in the registers of fiefs of the territory of Candia.
Turma was initially a military and then an administrative unit of the Byzantine themata.
The term used in Byzantine Crete was adopted by the Venetians as a geographical unit for
all the territories of Crete except that of Candia, where the term sexterium was used. See
Charalambos Gasparis, “Από τη βυζαντινή στη βενετική τούρμα: Κρήτη, 13ος–14ος αι.” [“From
the Byzantine to the Venetian Turma: Crete, 13th–14th Centuries”], Σύμμεικτα 14 (2001),
167–228.
35 On the burgesie as components of the fiefs, see Charalambos Gasparis, “Τα αστικά φέουδα
(burgesie). Η ακίνητη ιδιοκτησία των φεουδαρχών στον Χάνδακα” [“Urban Fiefs (Burgesie).
The Real Estate of Feudatories in Candia”], in Πεπραγμένα Η ́ Διεθνούς Κρητολογικού Συνεδρίου
[Proceedings of the Eighth International Cretological Congress], 3 vols. (Herakleion, 2000),
2:137–50.