196 Jacoby
included 33 peasant households before it was hit by the Greek rebellion of the
late 13th century.12 In the Frankish Morea commutation was implemented
only when the peasants could not carry out their labour service. Its monetary
equivalent was generally 5 hyperpyra and represented a substantial portion of
the total seigniorial revenue, mostly between 30 and 40 per cent. The adoption
of a uniform rate, regardless of whether the villeins had oxen of their own or
not, was obviously an accounting device simplifying the exaction of the pay-
ment and the evaluation of the estate’s revenue. Significantly, for most villeins’
households in the Frankish Morea the value of the corvée in cash was supe-
rior to that of the acrosticum or telos, the basic tax owed by these fiscal units.
Commutation was a convenient device saving the cost of supervision and the
need to coerce peasants to fulfil their obligations, while enabling the hiring of
labourers likely to work more efficiently. Hired workers were employed for lim-
ited periods of time in the exploitation of various resources. They were paid in
cash or in kind, in which case they sometimes received one half of the produce
obtained by their work. While exploiting their peasant holding some villeins
in the Frankish Morea were partially or totally exempt from taxes and entirely
from the corvée because they performed other services, like those serving as
archers at Krestena. However, these fiscal advantages did not improve their
socio-legal status, since they remained villeins.
Improved Management and Exploitation in the Rural Economy:
The Italian Contribution
It is still widely believed that the Byzantine elite was adverse to trade until
the 14th century.13 The production of olive oil in the Peloponnese and its com-
mercialisation before the Fourth Crusade contradict that proposition. By the
early 11th century the great provincial landowners perceived the changing
consumption patterns and the widening and more diversified demand within
Byzantine society and were aware of the benefit to be gained from a market-
oriented exploitation of their estates. The role of the archons of Sparta as
middlemen and wholesalers marketing both their own oil and the produce of
their peasants implies that they had a vested interest in the growing of olive
12 Spyridon M. Theotokes, ed., Θεσπίσματα της Βενετικής Γερουσίας, 1281–1385 [Statutes of the
Venetian Senate, 1281–1385], 2 vols. (Athens, 1936–37), 1:47–48, no. 12, document of 1307 list-
ing losses in income as a result of the rebellion. Commutation did not imply a change in
the legal status of the dependent peasant.
13 For this section, see above n. 2.