Land and Landowners in the Greek Territories 97
facilitated the authorities in their efforts to estimate the value of fiefs for taxa-
tion purposes, particularly towards the end of the 14th century. Each subdivi-
sion of a fief created new, smaller ones, since a piece of land could be named
a fief irrespective of its size. This resulted, in some extreme cases, in fiefs that
consisted of nothing more than a house in a town or a small plot of land. These
new smaller fiefs, however, retained their relationship to the original, larger
one. The owner of a tiny section of a fief was still considered a feudatory and
was burdened by certain responsibilities. The gradual increase of subdivisions
and the proliferation of smaller and smaller fiefs lead to the opening up of the
feudal class, whose members were already very unequal.
A further important evolution, especially at the end of the 14th century,
was the decline of the defence system that was based on the enlistment of the
feudatories themselves or their substitutes (socii), known as varnitio. Broadly
speaking, this system went through three stages. In the beginning most feuda-
tories were enlisted personally (defendere personaliter / defendere ad equum
personaliter / varnire in propria persona) and, depending on the magnitude of
their responsibilities, took it upon themselves to enlist others as well. Gradually
this ratio began to change and most feudatories avoided personal enlistment,
opting to be represented by others (defendere per socium or per militem /
varnire per socium militem). This gradual change in mentality, not only on the
part of the feudatories but consequently of the state as well, lead to the sub-
stitution of enlistment by the payment of a compensation (disvarnitio) equal
to the cost of maintaining a soldier, mounted or infantry. This money was then
invested in the payment of mercenary forces (stipendiarii) for the protection of
the colony.30 Henceforth, the responsibility of the feudatory, according to the
documents, was not to “defend personally” but to “garrison”; thus the feudato-
ries had a choice about how to fulfil their military duties. For various political
and strategic reasons the disvarnitio seems to have gained universal currency
after the middle of the 14th century and especially following the uprising of St
Titus (1363–1366). The safeguarding of Venetian overlordship and the need to
control the feudatories required the weakening and disarmament of the most
powerful among them.
30 On the topic of the varnitio and the military responsibilities of the feudatories, see
Salvatore Cosentino, Aspetti e problemi del feudo veneto-cretese (secc. xiii–xv), (Bologna,
1987), in particular pp. 45–76. On the mercenary army, see Charalambos Gasparis,
“Μητροπολιτική εξουσία και αξιωματούχοι των αποικιών. Ο καπιτάνος Κρήτης (14ος–15ος
αι.)” [“Metropolitan Authority and Colonial Officials. The Captain of Crete (14th–15th
Centuries)”], Σύμμεικτα 12 (1998), 186–96.