Land and Landowners in the Greek Territories 75
Crete, landowners formed a much more open class, which, moreover, gradually
broadened. As a result, only the top tier of the landowning class had access to
political authority and was able to participate in local administration.
The broad principles of the landowning regime which the Latin overlords
adopted in Greece (with some variation) and which was based on western
European feudal practices, were made evident immediately after the conquest
of Constantinople in 1204, when the Latin Emperor granted Venice and the
crusaders lands yet to be conquered. One observes here not only a feudal-type
ritual of land distribution, but also the adoption of feudal terminology, both by
the Franks, who were already familiar with this system, and by the Venetians,
who until this point had little experience in the administration and exploi-
tation of land. In June 1205 the Venetian podestà in Constantinople, Marino
Geno, ratified all the grants of land that he had made, using the term fief (feu-
dum) and forbade the sale of this land to non-Venetians.3 A few months later,
in October 1205, the Latin Emperor Henry of Flanders along with the podestà,
ratified the distribution of territories in Romania, whilst making reference
to knights (milites), both Frankish and Venetian, who owned fiefs within the
Byzantine Empire.4
The distribution of land in return for military service (in accordance with
western feudal practices) can also be observed in the subsequent pacts between
Venice and groups of citizens who were sent to conquer territories in return for
land grants in those areas. These same deals also attempted to determine the
ownership of the entirety of land in each of the conquered territories and to
settle the matter of the previous Byzantine landowners. Even though in most
cases there are discrepancies between the terms of these initial pacts and the
situation that eventually materialised, the basic principles outlined in these
pacts formed the spine of the landowning regime that was eventually imposed.
The first such surviving pact concerns the cession of Corfu and its surround-
ing islets, in July 1207, to ten Venetian nobles, in order that they might conquer
and exploit it. This first document does not dwell on the matters of landown-
ership and the Byzantine owners. Without relinquishing direct ownership,
Venice granted useful ownership (dominium utile) of the island’s land as a fief
in perpetuity, in return for conquest and the maintenance of control in the
name of the motherland. According to the same document, within six months
3 “de aliis gentibus, quod nos dedimus de nostris bonis in feodo... de hiis quod datum habe-
mus vel darentur, nullus homo audeat alienandum, nisi Venetico.” See Gottlieb L.F. Tafel
and Georg M. Thomas, eds., Urkunden zur älteren Handelsund Staatsgeschichte der Republik
Venedig, 3 vols. (Vienna, 1856), 1:559, no. 154.
4 “omnes milites, qui possessionem et feudum habent in imperio, tam de Francigenis, quam de
Venetis.. .” Tafel and Thomas, Urkunden, 1:572, no. 160.