142 Papadia-Lala
roots in Byzantium and had been guaranteed all their privileges and property
by the Genoese. The bulk of the population, meanwhile, was made up of Greek
peasants mainly engaged in mastic cultivation and agriculture. The Jews com-
prised a community of their own and dealt in money-lending.40
In summary, Latin Greece composed a motley and complex patchwork of
lands, disparate both in time and in space and which possessed no central,
unifying administrative-social institutions. Despite this, however, distinguish-
able at its nucleus are certain common constituents, which permit one to
regard it as a single entity, the prime of which are its rulers, all of whom were
Catholic western Europeans (principally Italians, French, Flemish, Spaniards).
The temporal inception of its creation is considered to be the overthrow of the
Byzantine Empire in 1204, notwithstanding that certain of the Latin dominions
preceded this date, whereas others were established some time later, being
unconnected with the Frankish crusades. The majority of the rulers arrived
on Greek territory straight from the West, while only a few (the Lusignan, the
Hospitallers of St John) came from the Holy Land.
With regard to the administrative and social organisation, the various
dominions presented both differences and similarities, which were, in any case,
all new to the Greek world of that era. Initially, the main axis was comprised of
the institution of the empire together with the simultaneous development of
feudal lordships within a system of sequential bonds of subjugation. After the
collapse of the Latin Empire in 1261, the transference of the rights of suzerainty
to various western rulers further complicated the political scene. The tribu-
tary lordships, with the Principality of Achaea wielding the greatest author-
ity, built up powerful ties with their own vassals, such as the lords of Euboea
and of the Cycladic islands. Outside of this system there still subsisted certain
earlier hegemonies (e.g. Lusignan Cyprus) and, notably, later ones (e.g. that of
the Hospitallers and of the Catalans). Governance of most of the regions was
exercised by the local lords themselves. One exception to this general rule was
that of lords ruling their own domains via their deputies, as in the instance
of the Angevins. Another noteworthy case was the granting of domains by a
dominion to its subjects (individuals, families or commercial companies) who
sometimes acted within the framework of the dominion’s politics and at other
times operated independently, maintaining only weak links with it. These
40 For the political and mainly administrative and social history of Genoese Chios, see
Balard, La Romanie génoise, 1:119–26, 253–54, 259–64, 267–68, 274–77, 279–83, 376–86;
Philip P. Argenti, The Occupation of Chios by the Genoese and their Administration of the
Island, 1346–1566, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1958), mainly 1:370–415, 569–648.