84 Gasparis
April 1256 recorded the area of Canea which was set aside for the feudatories,
the names of the feudatories and the number of fiefs that each would receive.
According to this, 38 feudatories would share 56 fiefs in Canea.
Thanks to the detailed listing of the names of the feudatories and the num-
ber of their fiefs, we can attempt a comparison between the evidence offered
by this latest document (1256) and the one of the colonisation (1252). Within
four years, the feudatories who would share the land had been reduced from 53
to 38 and the fiefs from 75 to 56. Though the original plan had made provision
for two categories of feudatories, knights, who would each receive one or two
cavallarie, and sergeants, who would receive half a cavallaria (three serventa-
rie), in the end only the category of knight materialised. Thus, several changes
had occurred in the period between the two documents, concerning the num-
ber of feudatories, the ratio of knights to sergeants and the ratio of knights
enfeoffed with two fiefs to those enfeoffed with one. However, the number of
fiefs corresponding to each of the feudatories remained the same. It is impos-
sible to tell whether the number of the colonists decreased at the time of their
departure in Venice, or whether some of them departed during the four years
that intervened.
At this point it is important to note the existence of Greek feudatories in
Canea. Both the 1255 and the 1256 documents expressly state that the distribu-
tion and recording of fiefs and feudatories in western Crete included Latins as
well as Greeks (tam inter Latinos quam inter Grecos). It is possible then, that
the decrease in the number of Latin feudatories and fiefs was due to the fact
that an unknown number of Greeks retained their landed property in the area.
These Greeks are not recorded in the list of Latin feudatories of 1256.
During the first colonisation in 1211 the land that was set aside for the feuda-
tories appears to have already been under the control of Venice and thus to have
been immediately available to them upon their arrival. The feudatories simply
had to defend the land against all enemies, internal or external. The only dis-
pensation afforded to them was their exemption from all dues to the Venetian
state for a period of four years after their arrival at Candia. The feudatories
who participated in the second colonisation, in the territory of Rethymnon
in 1222, seem to have enjoyed similar treatment. Once again, the land appears
to have been conquered already, though the document implies that potential
violence was not out of the question. The participants therefore were subsi-
dised in order to better equip themselves for the defence of their land, until the
situation in the area was stabilised. It was no coincidence that the feudatories
were required to remain in place for at least two years after their arrival. At the
end of that period, they were free to leave the island, provided that they left
someone in their place and that the authorities had granted their permission.