The Economy Of Latin Greece 205
Italian merchants and bankers handled more cash than the Greeks before
1204 and had easier access to peasants and landowners than in that period.
Transactions regarding agricultural and pastoral products were often based on
sale credit, in the form of anticipated payment for the delivery of an agreed
amount of produce at a specific date or within a specific period. Only local
inhabitants used this financial tool, too risky for merchants in transit. With its
concealed loan, it favoured the creditor who was in a position to exert pres-
sure on the producer, in need of cash, and obtain from him favourable prices.36
There were also loans to individuals and, collectively, to village communities.37
Taxes, lease payments and wages in the rural sector were delivered in cash or
kind, or else in a conjunction of both. The commutation of compulsory labour
service always entailed payments in cash. Export-oriented rural products were
sold in return for cash. Monetisation spread through the countryside from
ports such as Candia, Corinth, Patras, Glarenza, Modon and Coron serving as
maritime outlets of these products. Its extension in the rural economy is also
illustrated by finds of stray and excavated coins in villages, as in Elis. Especially
hoards accumulated over long periods may suggest to some extent the pace
and degree of that process.38
Channelling and Destinations of Rural Produce
Important and wide-ranging changes occurred in the channelling and destina-
tions of agricultural and pastoral surpluses produced by the confiscated estates
of large absentee landowners based in Constantinople.39 Before 1204 these sur-
pluses were either shipped to the capital for self-supply, sold at nearby mar-
kets, or donated to ecclesiastical institutions. The Latin conquest severed the
link to Constantinople. A portion of the surpluses had to be redirected toward
the new Latin landlords and their retinues established on their estates or in
nearby cities, while the remainder was transferred to markets and fairs in the
region in which they were produced.
36 See Jacoby, “Cretan Cheese,” pp. 51–54.
37 David Jacoby, “New Evidence on the Greek Peasantry in Latin Romania,” in Porphyrogenita:
Essays on the History and Literature of Byzantium and the Latin East in Honour of Julian
Chrysostomides, ed. Charalambos Dendrinos, Jonathan Harris, Eirene Harvalia-Crook and
Judith Herrin (Aldershot, 2003), pp. 239–56, repr. in Jacoby, Latins, Greeks and Muslims, X.
38 Jacoby, “Rural Exploitation,” pp. 227–73, passim. See also Julian Baker, ‘Money and
Currency in Medieval Greece’, in the present volume, pp. 217–54, especially 248–54.
39 For this section: Jacoby, “Changing Economic Patterns,” pp. 213–16.