The Economy Of Latin Greece 195
owing corvée, the privatised compulsory labour service formerly owed to the
Byzantine state, or else by hired workers. Grain was often grown in the mas-
saria, several of which existed, were established, or were planned in various
locations of the Frankish Morea in the 14th century. The corvée represented
an important economic factor, especially when the peasants worked with their
own oxen. The landowner anyhow maintained some beasts of labour for the
farming of his seigniorial land by villeins who had no oxen, whether in the
framework of their corvée or as hired workers.
Vineyards, olive groves, other fruit-bearing trees and vegetable gardens were
included both within the peasants’ holdings and seigniorial land, like grain
fields. For the exploitation of vacant peasant holdings and especially for small
scattered or isolated tracts of land or the latter’s extension, large landowners
and urban dwellers concluded various lease contracts with their own villeins,
those of other landowners, or recently arrived fugitives. The appactuatio, a
lease lasting up to 29 years, was the most common contract in that respect.
The hemiseia contract called for the division into equal shares between land-
owner and cultivator of newly planted trees and vines once they bore fruit,
the grower’s rights being upheld as long as cultivation continued while the
landowner retained ownership of the land. Other short-term agreements
were based on the payment of rent by the growers. These contracts enhanced
the growers’ motivation and generated increased yields. The soccida was an
association between the owner of a herd and a peasant offering his labour to
raise animals entrusted to him for a specific period, in return for a payment in
kind or cash. It was partly related to cheese production. These various profit-
sharing ventures are attested for the Frankish principality and the Venetian
territories of Crete, Coron and Modon. The peasants engaging in them sought
to supplement the income deriving from their own villein’s holding or other
resources.
Despite various manifestations of continuity, a partial restructuring at the
basic level of management and exploitation was unavoidable after the Latin
conquest. This appears to have been especially the case in estates owned by
Constantinopolitan landlords before the Latin conquest. Their fragmentation
into smaller units and the division of their work force among new landown-
ers must have often prevented the upholding of large-scale compulsory labour
services. Yet there was also a tendency to replace services and so-called gifts
owed by the peasants with cash payments, in particular in Crete where the
state-granted military tenements were at best moderate-sized. Commutation
was sometimes applied even when a fairly large labour force was available, as
in the late 13th century at Lombaro, the village held by Andrea Corner, which