104 Gasparis
hundred individuals.40 These were Syrian Christians who received lands in
return for mounted military service. Though they too owed military service
in return for their land, like the feudatories, they were not counted as part of
this class. What differentiated them was the size of their estates, their limited
political rights and above all, the type of their military service which they had
to discharge personally.
The Principality of Achaea
In the Peloponnese the Frankish conquerors annulled all pre-existing forms of
ownership, regardless of whether it concerned public land granted to private
owners, private heritable land or ecclesiastical property. The entirety of the
land passed into the ownership of the prince who kept as his own domain
about a quarter of the principality, which comprised several castellanies. Each
castellany was equal to a great barony. The prince, just like the duke of Crete or
the king of Cyprus, then distributed the rest of the land to his men.
Following the conquest of the Peloponnese, various different types of
fiefs emerged. The so-called “conquest fiefs” (της κουγκέστας) were those that
belonged to the Franks that had taken part in the conquest. They were herita-
ble and could be transferred not just to the firstborn scions (male and female)
but also laterally, to siblings or widows. Another category of fiefs were those
that had been granted at a later date and were thus called the new grant (νέο
δόμα). These were also heritable but could only be transferred to direct descen-
dants of the owners. Another distinct category were the casaux de parçon or
casali pro medietate grecorum et medietate francorum. These were villages that,
under particular political conditions and often on account of their location at
the borders of the Principality, had been recognised by treaties as joint posses-
sions of both the prince of Achaea and the Byzantine Emperor. They were sub-
sequently granted by these rulers to both Franks and native Greeks. The land
of such villages was indivisible and the peasants rendered half of their dues
to each of the owners.41 Similar, but not identical, was the case of the landed
40 See Jean Richard, “Les turcoples au service des royaumes de Jérusalem et de Chypre:
musulmans convertis ou chrétiens orientaux?” Mélanges Dominique Sourdel, Revue des
Études Islamiques 56 (1986), 259–70, repr. in idem, Croisades et États latins d’Orient: points
de vue et documents (Aldershot, 1992), X; Theodoros Papadopoullos, “Δομή και λειτουργία
του φεουδαρχικού πολιτεύματος” [“Structure and Function of the Feudal Regime”], in
Iστορία της Kύπρου, 4A:765.
41 David Jacoby, “Un régime de co-seigneurie gréco-franque en Morée: les casaux de par-
çon,” Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire 75 (1963), 189–228; repr. in David Jacoby, Société
et démographie à Byzance et en Romanie Latine (London, 1975), viii; see also idem,
“Rural Exploitation and Market Economy in the Late Medieval Peloponnese,” in Viewing