282 Jacoby
with those advocated by the Roman Church. No such mark had ever existed in
Byzantium.
The individual status of the Jews in the Frankish Principality of the Morea
is not documented. However, a remark contained in a report of 1361 dealing
with mutual recriminations between landlords regarding the seizure of their
dependent peasants may offer some clue. The representative of Centurione
Zaccaria suggested ironically that the peasants should be “sealed” to distin-
guish to whom they belong, like the Jews are “sealed” to differentiate them
among the Christians.141 The “seal” apparently hints at the round yellow badge,
yet since the speaker was an Italian from the mainland it is unclear whether he
referred to the Jews of the Morea or those of Angevin Italy.
In their territories the Latins exercised full control over the decision-making
political and judicial institutions. Only few Greeks gained access to these insti-
tutions over time, yet no Jews. The ruling Latins and the Latin Church jointly
promoted the specificity of the heterogeneous Latin community, composed
of settlers and their descendants from numerous regions in the West, in order
to bolster their own respective political and ecclesiastical authority over the
Greeks. There was no exclusion or expulsion of the Jews from the Latin territo-
ries, a policy contrasting with the one applied in the city of Venice, where Jews
were denied legal residence until 1513, except for the years 1382–97.142 Fiscal
considerations induced the Latin rulers to protect the Jews from individual
and collective violence, whether verbal or physical, both with respect to other
sections of the population and to the Roman Church. Venice limited the power
of the Inquisition in Crete, as in 1314, insisting that any inquisitorial activity in
its territories required the government’s approval and cooperation. It also safe-
guarded the Jews from popular aggression.143 On the other hand, Venice did
not object to the Latin Church’s proselytism. This was apparently the reason
why the Dominican monastery of Candia was established next to the Jewish
quarter and a plot of land in the Jewish quarter of Negroponte was chosen for
a monastery.144 The pressure exerted by the Dominican Inquisitors on the Jews
141 Longnon and Topping, Documents, p. 152, lines 9–16: “ma volea che fossuru vollati
[= bollati] como li Judei a conoscere inter Cristiani”. The term “vaxalli” in that context
refers to peasants: see ibid., lines 5–8.
142 Jacoby, “Venice and the Venetian Jews,” pp. 30–31.
143 Jacoby, “Jews and Christians,” pp. 257, 265, and 274, n. 158.
144 For the location in Candia: Maria Georgopoulou, Venice’s Mediterranean Colonies:
Architecture and Urbanism (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 136–37; for Negroponte: Leduc, as
above, n. 81.