202 Jacoby
not recorded among the peasants’ assets. These facilities were operated either
by the landowners’ officers or leased in return for a payment in kind. Clearly,
in their estates large landowners maintained a monopoly on oil pressing, the
milling of grain, some stages in the processing of raw silk, and the sale of wine,
preventing peasants from erecting, owning or operating processing or mar-
keting facilities, except in return for a fee. The peasants used the landown-
ers’ facilities, whether spontaneously or under the landowner’s pressure, in
return for a payment in cash or kind.25 The same pattern prevailed in Crete,
where the mills were property of the landowners and a component of military
tenements held from the state.26 In contrast, in the absence of large estates in
the Venetian territories of Coron and Modon oil pressing and the oil market
were open to competition.27
Rural surpluses in Latin Romania were partly conveyed to nearby rural or
urban markets and fairs by producers, whether landowners, peasants, herds-
men or craftsmen, who sold their own produce or else delivered them to a
specific customer, in accordance with a contract between them. Some produc-
ers also acted as middlemen between their peers and markets. In 1328 a few
Greek peasants from Venetian Messenia sold in Coron their own silk cocoons,
as well as others bought in the neighbouring Frankish Morea. Peasants wishing
to avoid the time-consuming and, therefore, costly transport of small amounts
of products to distant markets or fairs and sale there relied on professional
merchants and carriers collecting them in the countryside.28 Some large
landowners also acted as middlemen in the commercialisation of rural com-
modities. In addition to surpluses from their own demesne, they also sold the
produce of their dependent peasants and even of other peasants. Some of that
produce derived from taxes, payments for leases, or fees in kind collected for
the use of the landowner’s facilities. More importantly, many peasants found
it more convenient to sell to large landowners the produce that they wished
to market. A similar pattern may be assumed for the produce of small estates.
Large landowners could collect and acquire large quantities of goods and mus-
25 Jacoby, “Rural Exploitation,” pp. 241, 246–48, 251–52, 270. Peasants also stored their wine
in the landowners’ wine-cellars for maturation and preservation, presumably in return
for a payment. For silk processing, see David Jacoby, “Silk Production in the Frankish
Peloponnese: The Evidence of Fourteenth Century Surveys and Reports,” in Travellers
and Officials in the Peloponnese: Descriptions—Reports—Statistics, in Honour of Sir Steven
Runciman, ed. Haris A. Kalligas (Monemvasia, 1994), pp. 51–53, repr. in Jacoby, Trade, viii.
26 Gasparis, Η γη, pp. 97–105, and Theotokes, Θεσπίσματα, 1:47–48, no. 12.
27 Jacoby, “Rural Exploitation,” p. 241.
28 Ibid., pp. 271–72.