The Economy Of Latin Greece 189
financial gains and fiscal revenue they adopted various measures to attract set-
tlers and merchants, stimulate trade and shipping through their ports, enable
direct access to local producers, markets and fairs, and enhance foreign pur-
chases of local goods.
The extent to which land and peasants were confiscated and allotted to Latin
settlers varied from one region to another. It depended upon several factors:
the circumstances leading to the submission of the local population, either
based on agreements with the Latin leaders or imposed by force; the presence
of Greek archons remaining in the conquered territories and retaining their
property, whether partly or entirely, as in the Frankish Morea, Negroponte and
Crete; the size of property previously belonging to the Byzantine state, mem-
bers of the imperial family, or other absentee lay and ecclesiastical landowners
based in Constantinople; finally, the extent of the property which Latin rulers
or Venice decided to grant. In Venetian Crete the state retained under its direct
authority the city and district of Candia, as well as the latter’s rural workforce.
It appears to have acted similarly in the territories of Coron and Modon. In any
event, the developments just mentioned put an end to the dominant social
role of the local Byzantine elite, severely curtailed its involvement in the rural
economy and the marketing of its products, and eliminated it from the spon-
sorship of manufacture.
There were also external factors affecting the economy of Latin Greece.
The losses inflicted upon the infrastructure of Constantinople by wide-
spread fires and warfare in 1203 and 1204 were compounded by the exodus
of population from all walks of life, including the Byzantine imperial court,
the social elite, and craftsmen. As a result, Constantinople’s role as a major
consumption centre was sharply reduced, and its manufacturing of elite prod-
ucts such as silks ceased. The political fragmentation of former Byzantine
territories further undercut the city’s economic centrality. After 1204 it was
merely the capital of a reduced territorial entity. There was no flow of cash
and goods to Constantinople, whether in the form of fiscal revenue or self-
supply of elite households from their provincial estates. The Latin emperors of
Constantinople were chronically impoverished, and the purchasing power of
the Latin settlers did not offset the consequences of large-scale depopulation.
Constantinople’s economic contraction was only partly overcome in the last
two decades of Latin rule over the city, which lasted until 1261.6
6 David Jacoby, “The Economy of Latin Constantinople, 1204–1261,” in Urbs capta: The Fourth
Crusade and its Consequences, ed. Angeliki E. Laiou (Paris, 2005), pp. 195–214, repr. in Jacoby,
Travellers, Merchants and Settlers, vii.