Land and Landowners in the Greek Territories 103
and the revenues that it generated. Those were the knight’s, the squire’s and the
sergeant’s fief. This classification also of course reflected the division between
different tiers within the feudal class. Although their main duty was military
service, the Frankish feudatories cannot be considered as militarily powerful
in their own right, for they did not own castles like those in Principality of
Achaea for example or in western Europe. The hard core of the feudatory class
was comprised of the barons, four in number, who were not only financially
much more powerful than the rest of the feudatories, but politically as well,
for only they among the feudatories had direct access to the king and, in some
cases, co-signed important documents. Among the rest of the feudatories, we
can distinguish two tiers, the nobiles maiores and the nobiles minores, the for-
mer more powerful (politically and economically) than the latter. All of the
feudatories, however, regardless of the tier to which they belonged, partici-
pated in the High Court.
Fiefs were granted either directly by the king or by one of his subordinates.
In the latter case, the feudatories would swear fealty to him, thus, indirectly to
the king. Fiefs could consist either of lands or of money or of a combination
of the two. The nucleus of the fief was the village, which was also the main
productive and tax unit. The feudatories, as was the case elsewhere, resided in
the cities, mainly in Nicosia, but also some of them in other cities of the island.
They also maintained a residence in their villages, but did not reside there per-
manently. They were not allowed to dispense justice over their peasants. They
were represented in their villages by the Katepano, who were responsible for
the collection of taxation from the villagers. Most of the lands of the fief were
exploited indirectly, by the peasants who then rendered the usual services to
the lord. A small portion of the land was cultivated directly by the feudatory,
either through the angaria (compulsory service rendered by the lord’s villeins)
or through waged workers. Along with the control of the land, feudatories also
owned rights of exclusive or shared exploitation of other resources, which
supplemented their incomes. These included rights over mills, winepresses,
facilities for the treatment of flax, facilities for the treatment of dyed fabrics, or
even taverns. All these gave the feudatories a very privileged financial position
in their own territories and in the kingdom in general.39
Amongst the landowners, but excluded from the feudal class, were counted
the so-called Turcopoles, a small group of around a hundred and fifty to two
39 For the Frankish nobility and feudatories see Peter W. Edbury, “Franks,” in Cyprus: Society
and Culture, pp. 77–98; Richard, “Οι πολιτικοί και κοινωνικοί θεσμοί,” pp. 354–59.