Land and Landowners in the Greek Territories 105
property of the Latin bishoprics of the Venetian towns of Modon and Coron.
Part of this property was within the borders of the principality. Geoffrey de
Villehardouin had agreed not to confiscate it and redistribute it, thus recognis-
ing the rights of the bishops. Accordingly, the bishops were counted amongst
his subjects.42
Regardless of the different categories of fiefs, the feudal class in the prin-
cipality included, apart from the prince who was the first among the knights,
three different tiers, whose difference was based not only on the size of the
fief and consequently on each one’s financial position but also on the manner
in which the fief had been granted and on the relationship of the fief-holder
with the prince. The top tier was occupied by the lieges (ligii) and formed the
most important and most numerous category of the prince’s vassals. They
owed military, court and counsel service to the prince and each one of them
could judge his own vassals. Among the lieges we find the small group of the
barons (bers de terre), who were the peers of the prince and who assisted him
in the governance of the principality. The barons were noble and were, initially,
those who along with the Prince had conquered the Peloponnese and founded
the principality. In later years the title passed to their heirs. The baronies were
about twelve and of unequal size. Each of them consisted of a certain number
of knights’ fiefs and some of them were subinfeudated to other knights. The
lieges enjoyed all the traditional rights of high feudal lords, including the right
to mint coins within their dominions, the right to dispense justice, both low
and high (since they sat in the High Court) and the right to build castles.43
The middle tier of the feudal class consisted of the feudatories of simple
homage (homines plani homagii), who did not have the same political and judi-
cial authority as the lieges. They had the right to dispense justice only over
their own villeins (villani) and they had the right to bequeath their fiefs to their
eldest son or, if childless, to their next of kin. Finally, the third, and lower tier
of the feudal class consisted of the enfeoffed sergeants, who were subjected
to a baron or a liege.44 The relations and obligations between feudatories,
the Morea: Land and People in the Late Medieval Peloponnese, ed. Sharon E.J. Gerstel
(Washington DC, 2013), pp. 213–75, and esp. 218–19, 228–29.
42 Jacoby, La féodalité, p. 223.
43 For the role of castles in Frankish Greece and especially in the Peloponnese, see Peter
Lock, The Franks in the Aegean, 1204–1500 (London, 1995), pp. 75–80.
44 See Jean Longnon, “The Frankish States in Greece, 1204–1311,” in A History of the Crusades,
ed. Kenneth M. Setton, 6 vols. (Madison, Wisc., 1969–89), 2:235–74, esp. 248–51; Jacoby,
“The Encounter of Two Societies”, p. 887; idem, “Social Evolution in Latin Greece”, in A
History of the Crusades, 6:190–92; Maria Dourou-Eliopoulou, Το φραγκικό πριγκιπάτο της