120 Papadia-Lala
the Greeks belonged to the lowest ranks of the feudal society, i.e. dependent
cultivators, the main components of their identity being both their social sta-
tus and their adherence to the Greek-Orthodox rite.
Similar socio-administrative institutions continued to be employed during
Angevin rule in the Morea, from 1267/78 until its decline in the 14th century,
as well as during the ensuing various fleeting Latin regimes (the Florentine
Acciaiuoli, the Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, the Navarrese
Company), which lasted up until 1432 when the final remnant of the Frankish
State was surrendered to the Byzantines.9
The feudal system delineated in the Assizes of Romania was also imple-
mented in the Burgundian Lordship of Athens (after 1280, the “Duchy of
Athens”).10 Its complex history began with the conquest of Attica and Boeotia
by Boniface of Montferrat towards the end of 1204 and their subsequent ces-
sion as a fief to the Burgundian knight Otto de la Roche. The duchy was there-
after expanded, with the cession of Argos and Nauplion as fiefs by Geoffrey I
de Villehardouin to Otto in 1212, and shortly afterwards broken up, with the
cession of Thebes to the Flemish family of St Omer.
By contrast to the Principality of Achaea, data chronicling the social organ-
isation of the Frankish lordship of Attica and Boeotia are sparse. The fiefs will
have belonged in their virtual totality to the Latins, while most of the indig-
enous people held the status of villeins. On the other hand, there is ample tes-
timony of a small segment of the population residing in the city of Thebes who
were vigorously engaged in urban economic activities.
The administrative and political structures of the duchy were modified
after the conquest of Attica, Boeotia and southern Thessaly by the Catalan
Grand Company, a free company of mercenaries, and the establishment of the
Catalan lordship (1311–1389)11 and, subsequently, of the Florentine Acciaiuoli
from 1389 until the duchy’s occupation by the Ottomans in 1456.
9 Apart from the works listed above, see Jean Longnon and Peter Topping, eds., Documents
sur le régime des terres dans la principauté de Morée au xive siècle (Paris, 1969); Antonio
Carile, La rendita feudale nella Morea latina del xiv secolo (Bologna, 1974).
10 William Miller, Essays on the Latin Orient (Cambridge, 1921; repr., Amsterdam, 1964),
pp. 110–134; Andreas Kiesewetter, “Ricerche costituzionali e documenti per la Signoria ed
il Ducato di Atene sotto i De La Roche e Gualtieri V Di Brienne (1204–1311),” in Bisanzio,
Venezia e il mondo franco-greco (xiii–xv secolo): atti del colloquio internazionale organiz-
zato nel centenario della nascita di Raymond-Joseph Loenertz o.p., Venezia, 1–2 Dicembre
2000 , ed. Chryssa A. Maltezou and Peter Schreiner (Venezia, 2002), pp. 289–347.
11 Kenneth M. Setton, Catalan Domination of Athens, 1311–1388 (London, 1975). Specifically
concerning the social organisation, see idem, “Τhe Catalans in Greece (1311–1380),” in
A History of the Crusades, ed. Kenneth M. Setton, 6 vols. (Madison, Wisc., 1969–89), 3:167–