76 Gasparis
of the death of the land’s user, his heir ought to renew his vows of fidelity and
agree to the terms of the grant. Venice reserved the right to refuse the renewal
of the grant under specific circumstances. The heir was required to travel to
Venice in order to take the oath and renew the grant. Should that prove impos-
sible, the procedure could be performed on the island by an agent of the doge.
It is worth noting that the document refers to the process as investiture (inves-
titura), a singularly feudal term, with the doge taking on the role of the king.
According to the terms of the document, the inhabitants of Corfu would
swear fidelity to the ten Venetian citizen-conquerors, thus indirectly swearing
fealty to the doge. The new conquerors in turn, under the direction of Venice,
were bound to maintain the inhabitants’ status quo and not to demand any
further dues from them, other than what they were accustomed to pay under
Byzantine rule. At this point the document refers to “the people of this land”
(homines ipsius loci), but it is unclear who the Venetian authorities were talk-
ing about: is it the entire population of the island, including the landowners, or
just the peasants and burghers, who would continue to be treated as before? If
we accept that the landowners were included, then in theory they could con-
tinue to exploit their own land and render to the Venetian nobles the same
taxation that they used to render to the Byzantine state. Equally vague is the
term concerning the status of the local churches, which again was to remain
the same as before the arrival of the Venetians.5 Of course there is no mention
of the issue of church property and one may surmise that this also remained
unchanged, with the exception that dues would now have to be paid to the
new owners of the island.
For Corfu, as indeed for the rest of the conquered Byzantine territories, the
pertinent question is this: under what terms did the Byzantine landowners
own their land? What exactly did they pay and to whom, before the arrival of
the Latin conquerors? In other words, was it land held in full ownership or was
it land belonging to the fisc (pronoies) which had been granted to them and
what percentage of each did they own? As our knowledge concerning the land-
regime in Corfu before the arrival of the Venetians is very limited, the only safe
conclusion is that, since all the land of the island was granted to the new lords,
all the landowners, regardless of the previous state of affairs, were now answer-
able to the new Venetian lords. It remains open to debate, however, whether
they all retained their land or whether some of them lost it. Unfortunately,
as evidence is lacking and as the Venetians only retained the island for eight
5 “Ecclesias in pertinentiis nobis concessis positas habere debemus eo modo, quo habebantur
temporibus Grecorum Imperatorum”. See Tafel and Thomas, Urkunden, 2:56, no. 182.