Land and Landowners in the Greek Territories 113
all the territories examined but there existed significant variations which char-
acterised each state. Such variations included the relationship of the cultivator
with the land and the landowner, the relationship of both with the state, the
form and size of taxation, the methods of cultivation, the products produced
and their trade, the agricultural facilities etc.
Despite these differences, however, there can be no doubt that in the Latin
states of Greece, land was the focus around which the Latins built their con-
quest and their defence, articulated their societies and based their financial
growth. The observable variations in the land regime of the individual states
were the result of each territory’s history, the political background of each of
the new rulers and the unique geophysics of each area.
unsuccessful attempt on the part of some of the Greeks to take control of the island and
reunite it to the Byzantine Empire in 1347, their properties were seized. The rest of the
Greeks probably retained their lands. See Michel Balard, La Romanie génoise (xiie–début
du xve siècle) (Genoa, 1978), pp. 125, 704–05. See also Philip Argenti, The Occupation of
Chios by the Genoese and their Administration of the Island, 1346–1566, 3 vols. (Cambridge,
1958), 1:416–17, 438–42.