The Economy Of Latin Greece 199
Both manure and irrigation were used in 1337 in the farming of a garden in
the plain of Elis, in the Peloponnese. Irrigated orchards in 14th-century Crete
grew cherries, marasca or sour cherries, pomegranates, peaches, pears, lemons
and thick-skinned citrons, while sour oranges grew in 1354 on demesne land at
Petoni in northern Messenia, in the Peloponnese, thanks to the initiative of a
seigniorial manager. Citrus growing appears to have been introduced in Latin
Greece around that time, yet still remained fairly limited around 1400. By 1450,
however, citrons and oranges were being exported from Coron and Modon in
larger amounts.
Cotton growing was also a cash crop introduced by Italian landowners and
stewards into Latin Greece. By 1307 Crete was already shipping its cotton to
Venice. Cotton cultivation in the Frankish Morea is securely documented for
the first time in 1365, when it appears to have been already practiced for some
time around Corinth and Argos. Cotton was also grown in the countryside of
Coron and Modon, as well as in Negroponte and Corfu. The introduction of
cotton cultivation and its stimulation in the Cycladic island of Santorini was a
deliberate policy initiated in the second half of the 14th century by the Italian
dukes of the Archipelago. In 1362 the duchess Fiorenza Sanudo sold in advance
the total annual yield of the three following years to two Venetian merchants.
Several cotton sales by the island’s rulers are documented in the following
decades.19
The Italian estate managers in the Frankish Morea also took steps to increase
production and storage facilities and enhance the commercialisation of sur-
pluses. Jacobo Buzuto, already mentioned above, reported in 1354 to the land-
owner, Niccolò Acciaiuoli, that he had recently built a new tower in Krestena,
in fact a large and complex structure serving as a major administrative and pro-
duction centre. It included an oil press, a wine cellar and an oven, in addition
to numerous rooms.20 The construction of a wine cellar at Grizi was suggested,
because the village produced large quantities of wine that could easily be con-
veyed to the market. On the other hand, the sale of wine produced at Petoni
was seriously hampered because the village was isolated and land transporta-
tion was difficult. Therefore it would be wise to keep this wine for the use of
the landowner and his family. An additional fish-pond was envisaged for Pilla.
In 1361 Nicola de Boiano reported that because of mismanagement wine, salt,
19 Jacoby, “Rural Exploitation,” pp. 260–63; Guillaume Saint-Guillain, “Les ducs de l’Archipel
et le coton de Santorin (fin xive–début xve siècle),” in Bisanzio, Venezia e il mondo franco-
greco (xiii–xv secolo): atti del colloquio internazionale organizzato nel centenario della nas-
cita di Raymond-Joseph Loenerz o.p., Venezia, 1–2 Dicembre 2000, ed. Chryssa A. Maltezou
and Peter Schreiner (Venice, 2002), pp. 365–94.
20 Jacoby, “Rural Exploitation,” p. 241.