The Landscape of Medieval Greece 339
The Evidence
The most significant monuments that have survived are fortifications, castles,
and churches of the Latin and Greek rites. Urban centres and provincial towns
have preserved remains that allow us to reconstruct the urban design of colo-
nial foundations, whereas the countryside with its isolated towers and small
churches offers a wonderful canvas on which to study the interaction of local
building practices and self-expression with the colonial authorities. Depending
on patronage and purpose there are different groups of monuments that taken
together create the overall picture. I will first discuss the urban centres, then
churches and isolated forts, and finally the rural landscape.
Urban Centres
The new realities and pressing demand to establish a firm presence on the
ground meant that the Latin colonists sought to create seats of government in
newly founded towns, like Andravida of the Villehardouin in the Peloponnese,
or took over older cities like Venetian Candia on Crete. Though little other
than the capital of Achaea was built ex nihilo these towns were conceived as
princely or colonial foundations and needed to be equipped with all the neces-
sary trappings for the administration of a region as well as to ensure political
and economic hegemony through vigorous colonial policies.40
Luckily we possess an invaluable document detailing what was deemed nec-
essary for the founding of a Venetian colony in former Byzantine territories.
The prescriptions of the Doge Marino Morosini to those sent to rebuild the
city of Canea on Crete in 1252 instruct the colonists to found public squares,
administrative buildings, a main street (ruga magistra), one or more (Latin
rite) churches, and city walls.41 This detailed description of a new colonial
40 Peter Lock, “Castles and Seigneurial Influence in Latin Greece,” in From Clermont to
Jerusalem: The Crusades and Crusader Societies, 1095–1500: Selected Proceedings of the
International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 10–13 July 1995, ed. Alan V. Murray
(Turnhout, 1998), pp. 173–86.
41 “Cum itaque a nobis ordinatum sit, quod civitas fieri debeat in dicta terra Puncte de Spata,
et dicto capitaneo et consciliariis iniunxerimus et comiserimus, quod civitatem Chanee
rehedificare [.. .] Et sciendum est, quod, sicut comisimus dicto capitaneo et eius consci-
liariis, debet idem cum suis consciliariis vel altero eorum accipere ante partem in civi-
tate pro comuni plateas pro domo et domibus comunis et ruga magistra et ecclesia seu
ecclesiis et municionibus hedificandis, sicut eidem capitaneo et eius consciliariis vel ipsi
capitaneo et uni ex ipsius consciliariis bonum videbitur; et muros dicte civitatis facient
capitaneus et consciliariii hedificari, et pro ipsis hedificandis et foveis civitatis seu aliis
munitionibus faciendis rusticos dictarum partium habere et angarizare debent, scilicet