358 Georgopoulou
construction of a church either individually or in groups, as in the single nave
barrel-vaulted church of the Holy Anargyroi in Kepoula dated to 1265.88
International trade and the opening of new markets may have expanded
the horizons and earnings of Greek peasants and artisans and brought eco-
nomic prosperity to provincial towns in the 13th century as the urban centres
provided outlets of produce to the West. Apart from the greater number of
churches in the countryside, landowning patterns and agricultural techniques
remained constant for the most part so the rural landscape did not change
dramatically.89 As in all crusader states in the medieval Mediterranean under-
manning was a constant problem for the Frankish fiefs in Greece.90 Some of
the large estates of the noble Byzantine families were divided after 1204 into
smaller feudal units in accordance with western principles and eventually the
Greek archontes became part of the feudal system; as a result local centres that
were given certain privileges were strengthened.91
Churches sponsored by the Greek elite or by western feudal lords in their
Greek villages strive to create buildings that are Byzantine structurally and
stylistically but are also en vogue, so they use new architectural features vis-
ible in major urban monuments that display western features. The church
of Panagia Katholike at Gastouni, built by the Greek Kalligopoulos brothers
in 1278/9, is a Byzantine cross-in-square plan church with typical cloisonné
masonry and decorative brickwork, has Italian gridiron pottery (bacini) on the
exterior walls as well as a Gothic doorframe, a capital, and a cornice with bil-
lets (Figure 10.12).92 Imported Italian pots (bacini) decorate the façade of a 15th
century Greek church in Kitharida in Crete on the fief of the Venetian feudal
lord and poet Marino Falier; despite the fact that he was a staunch Catholic
he fought against the Venetian authorities to permit the ordination of a Greek
priest that would benefit the farmers who worked his land.93 A Frankish lord
88 Kalopissi-Verti, Dedicatory Inscriptions, p. 35. The cost of the church of circa 4 × 2.50
metres was 14.5 nomismata.
89 Cooper, Houses of the Morea.
90 Bintliff, The Complete Archaeology of Greece, pp. 418–19.
91 Lefteris Sigalos, “Middle and Late Byzantine Houses in Greece (Tenth to Fifteenth
Centuries),” in Secular Buildings and the Archaeology of Everyday Life in the Byzantine
Empire, ed. Ken R. Dark (Oxford, 2004), pp. 53–81, 65.
92 Demetrios Athanasoulis, “Η αναχρονολόγηση του ναού της Παναγίας της Καθολικής στη
Γαστούνη,” [“The Redating of the Church of the Panagia Katholike at Gastouni”], Δελτίον
Χριστιανικής Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας, ser. 4, 24 (2003), 63–78.
93 Georgopoulou, “Vernacular Architecture,” pp. 447–80; and Maria Vassilaki, “Saint
Phanourios: Cult and Iconography,” Δελτίον Χριστιανικής Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας 10 (1980–
81), 223–38.