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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2016
A unique document of 1451 written in political verse gives an account by an anonymous-Greek of his encounters with Byzantine and Venetian justice as the result of a small incident at the Nauplion fair of Agios Demetrios of 1449. Petitions from Argos and Nauplion to Venice in 1451 recount a similar incident at his same fair, and give a broader perspective of both events. Together the three documents produce a remarkable view of Nauplion and Argos intra-city hostilities and competition, social classes, and economics, and with the relationship of both with the Despotate of the Morea.
I would like to thank Ersie Burke, Pierre MacKay, Nick Nicholas, and Michael Pettinger for their comments, and particularly the anonymous reviewer who made many helpful suggestions.
1 All non-Greek rule, with the exception of Venice, had been eliminated from the Morea by John, Constantine, and Thomas Palaiologos in 1428-29.
2 Mentions of stato da mar fairs are rare to non-existent. In 1525, Nicolò Justiniani described crossbow competitions at the fairs for Easter, the Feast of S. Marco, and Christmas. ASVe Relazioni, filza 61, ff 32-5. Sathas, K., Μνημεΐα Έλληνικής Ίστορίας/Documents inédits relatifs à l’historié de la Grèce au Moyen Âge (Paris 1880-90) VI, 245 Google Scholar. Modon had a fair of Madonna santa Maria on the beach at the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin in August. Sathas, , Μνημεΐα IV, 27 Google Scholar, for 6 November 1465.
3 Choras, G., ‘Άυτοβιογραφικό στνχούργημα Ναυπλιώτη (1451)’, Ναυπλιακά Ανάλεκτα III (1998) 348-63Google Scholar: Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1097, f. 290v-291r.
4 The name, Spatharos, is known for the Argolid. Wright, D. and Melville-Jones, J., The Greek correspondence of Bartolomeo Minio. Vol. I: Dispacci front Nauplion, 1479-1483 (Padua 2008) 252 Google Scholar, names an Andreas Spatharos as a kapetanios taking struttoti to Italy. For the name and variants, Trapp, E., Prosopogra-phisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit (Vienna 2001 Google Scholar; hereafter, PLP) 26436-42.
5 ‘The torturable classes’ is a phrase from Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana. Roman law had categories of individuals for whom torture was required in giving testimony, although the classes are never perfectly defined and much depended on the individual judge. Jones, A. H. M., The later Roman empire, 284-602 (Baltimore 1964) 1 Google Scholar: 519. Also, Perkins, J., ‘Early Christian and judicial bodies’, in Fögen, M. Th. and Lee, M. (eds), Bodies and boundaries in Graeco-Roman Antiquity (Berlin 2009) 247-9Google Scholar.
6 A Venetian document of 1400 stipulates that letters be written to the lord of Mouchli, the despot, and the podestà of Nauplion, seeking the release of Nicolò Catello, who had been imprisoned when he went to Mouchli to inquire about payment for merchandise. Sathas, Μνημεΐα 1: #232 for 4 February 1400.
7 Argos and Nauplion are 8 miles apart, both a day’s walk from Mouchli.
8 Private imprisonment seems to have been a normal feature of incarceration in the Morea. Sphrantzes was imprisoned in someone’s grain storage tower (with mice and weevils) when he was captured at Patras. Sphrantzes, G., Memorii, 1401-1477, ed. Grecu, V., Pseudo-Sphrantzes: Macarte Melissenos Cronica, 1258-1481 (Bucharest 1966) § XVII, 10 Google Scholar.
9 The podestà was probably Nicolò Valier q. Paolo. Rulers of Venice, 1332-1524: Interpretations, Methods, Database, eds O’Connell, M., Kohl, B., et al. (ACLS Humanities E-Book 2009)Google Scholar q.v. Maps, Argos, records #20, #22. Also, Chroniques Grèco-Romanes inédits ou peu connues ed. Hopf, C. (Berlin 1873) 382-3Google Scholar. The titles of podestà, rettor, and provveditor are used somewhat interchangeably for ‘governor’.
10 There are two mentions of consiglieri in Nauplion in 162 years. Sathas, Μνημεΐα 4: 246, 254. Only twelve appear in the records of the Segretario Voci between 1442 and 1521, and none before or after. O’Con-nell, Rulers of Venice, passim. This is the only document that shows someone in Nauplion actually acting in that role and neither is on the SV list.
11 ASVe Commissioni Provveditori, b 3/53: Commissione a Francesco Bragadin, also Sathas, , Μνημεΐα I, 290-1Google Scholar describes the role of consiglieri.
12 The Catello family is involved with the Anonymous narrative in several ways. Giovanni Catello is cited in the Nauplion petition. Giovanni and Michele Catello took the petition to Venice in 1450, the year of this hearing. Marin Catello is part of the hearing, and a Nicolò Catello was imprisoned at Mouchli in a similar process of justice. ASVe Senato Mar r.4, f79v. For more information on the family, Jacoby, D., La féodalité en Grèce médiévale: ‘Les Assises de Romanie,’ sources, application et diffusion (Paris 1971) 217-18Google Scholar. Also, Tsavara, A., ‘Devozione, violenza e uva passa: Le famiglie di Mourmouris e Catello di Nauplion nel XV secolo’, in I Greci durante la venetocrazia: Uomini, spazio, idee (Xlll-XVlll sec) (Venice 2009) 597–611 Google Scholar. Choras, Άυτοβιογραφικό’, 354, no. 10.
13 Ploumides, B., ‘Έιδήσεις για το Βενετοκρατούμενο Ναύπλιο’, Πελοποννησιακά 7> (1971) 266 Google Scholar, no. 38 for 1491 and no. 39 for 1493: the Senate directs the use of the four Franciscans of Santa Maria valus viridis, S. Maria de Valverde, a community from Venice, to save the expense of a chaplain. Thiriet, no. 2643 for 22 April 1444, advises the same for Modon, which also had a house of S. Maria de Valverde.
14 Sindici: patricians sent out in pairs biennially to the città of the stato da mar to investigate justice and finances, and to hear complaints from local residents.
15 Nauplion petition no. 4: ‘misser Priamo Contarmi per vostra comandamento romagna provededor et ambaxador, et... andra al despoto ... per saper la lingua greca.’
16 The Assizes of Romania (see below) provided that: ‘A party, if he so wishes, can request that a sentence of judgment be given in written form. And the court is bound to give it to him under the seals of those who make the judgment. And the lord is bound to have the judgment of his court placed in writing in his register.’ Topping, P., Feudal institutions as revealed in the Assizes of Romania (Philadelphia 1949) no. 168 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
17 This line - αύτοί δέ то μετάτρεψεν καί εΐπαν οτι σε χέζω τοΰς συντίχους - has too many syllables for the meter. The substitution of σε for καΐ εΐπαν οτι would solve the problem.
18 This is surely poetic license. The administration at Coron had been instructed a few years earlier that the two veterans who held the keys to the prison as a sinecure were to be fired, and the aide to the castellan was to have the keys. ASVe Senato Mar r. 1, f. 227v. for 29 March 1444. Thiriet, Régestes, no. 2641.
19 ASVe Senato Mar r. 4, f. 153 for 28 September 1452. Thiriet, Régestes, no. 2900.
20 Communità. The petition uses both spellings of the term.
21 Argos petition: ASVe Senato Mar r. 4 ff. 76v-77v. Nauplion petition: ASVe Senato Mar r. 4 ff. 77v-79v. Both petitions can be found at the website of the Archivio di Stato di Venezia at http://www.archi viodistatovenezia.it/divenire/home.htm
22 See also Rulers of Venice, Map 4: Argos, in which the records for Argos begin in 1442. Also Hopf, Chroniques, 383. Argos had its own administration very briefly, from 1394 to 1397, when it first came under Venetian control, but after the Ottoman raid of 1397 there was essentially no one left in the town.
23 Nauplion petition: no. 2: ‘Aricordando ala Vostra Eccellentia che Argos aparangon de Napoli e una villa, et una cesta, et non habita li altri che homeni che lavora la terra, equi tuti forestieri, ma Napoli ha de boni zitadini... ’
24 This number seems quite large. Whatever the correct number, many people had abandoned the area before the arrival of the Turks. Within a year after the raid, the podestà of Nauplion had already brought in the first Albanian settlers to replace the missing. Two years later it was announced that those who had abandoned the area and wanted to come back could do so and be exempt from all angariae for five years, as well as Albanians ‘and other good men’ with their horses who could serve under arms. ASVe Senato Misti r. 44 f. 62v. Thiriet, Régestes, no. 950 for 7 September 1398, no. 967 for 27 July 1399. Michaelis Mourmouris was finally able to return home after nine years as a captive, but as his property had been given to a new owner, the podestà gave him new lands. Tsavara, ‘Devozione’, 598. Pseudo-Sphrantzes, 225, claims that 30,000 had been taken into slavery; that number of inhabitants could not have been achieved until the later 20th century.
25 Argos petition: no.l. The petition shows the slow immigration of Albanians from the Morea who were willing to live in town and work the land, stating that first 18 families came, and then another 7. Immigrants got 40 stremmata of farm land, 5 stremmata of vineyards, and the shell of a burnt-out house. Allotments were made with a realistic appraisal of how much land was needed to support a family, and also to produce the wine which was the main Venetian interest in the area.
26 Nauplion petition: no. 6.
27 Nauplion petition: no. 2.
28 The relevance of elders to property lines can be seen in Wright and Melville Jones, Bartolomeo Minio, no. 22 where the oldest (and most respected) inhabitants are called on to testify to their memories of assumptions about boundaries when it was necessary to identify the boundary between Turkish Argos and Venetian Nauplion.
29 Argos petition: no. 2.
30 ASVe Stato Mar r. 4, f. 17v.
31 Venice continued to use the land terminology in use when it acquired the Argolid, but the meaning of ‘fief’ changed. It became an administrative term - a fief contained villages and the landholder was responsible for collecting the revenues - but Venice did not allow the privatization of the military or justice which is assumed in a feudal system. Jacoby, Féodalité, 221 misunderstands this.
32 ASV4 r. 4, f.17v. The Argos-Nauplion region had good soil, particularly that of Argos at the head of the bay with its many springs. Nauplion was a comparatively large local and export market, and it had a port. Many of the landholders were cash croppers and could be considered ‘middle class.’ The immigrants with 40 stremmata could more than support themselves and probably make a profit. (Personal communication from Guy Sanders, 25 March 2011.) Also see G. Sanders, ‘Landlords and tenants: sharecroppers and subsistence farming in Corinthian historical context’, pre-publication paper for ‘Corinth in Context’ conference, at http://ascsa.academia.edu/GuySanders/Papers/379298/Corinthian_Landlords_and_Tenants_Sharecroppers_and_Subsistence_Farming_in_Greek_Historical_Context
33 For the contents of the Assizes, Topping, Feudal institutions as revealed in the Assizes of Romania.
34 Diplomatarium Veneto-Levantinum: sive, Acta et diplomata res venetas, graecas atque levantis, ed. Thomas, G. (New York 1966) II, no. 126 Google Scholar and no. 127 give the two treaties of 12 December 1388 in which Venice acquired both territories from Maria d’Engino, widow of a wealthy Venetian, Pietro Corner. Both documents refer to her as ‘vendatrix’ and state that she is over the age of fourteen and under the age of twenty-five (‘minor viginti quinque annis, major tamen quatuordecim’). She was twenty-four, so she was old enough to be married, but not of an age to transfer property legally. Twenty-five was the legal age for a woman to transfer property. This seems not to have been noticed before by anyone writing on the subject. Maria remarried, her husband died in 1392, and then she died in 1393 without heirs.
35 The essential work on Latin rule and Venetian acquisition is still Luttrell, A., ‘The Latins of Argos and Nauplion: 1311-1394’, Papers of the British School at Rome 34 (1966) 34–55 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The 1288 document specifies that Maria ‘uendit et tradidit et transtulit (Argos and Nauplion ... cum districtibus, pertinentiis, jurisdictioni-bus et juribus ipsorum locorum ...’ Argos was immediately occupied by Theodoros Palaiologos, Despot of Mistra, within four days of hearing of Pietro Corner’s death. He attempted a siege of Nauplion but because Venice could supply it by sea, he withdrew. The issue was finally settled in May 1396. Gregorovius, F., Ίστορία τής πόλεως Άθηνών κατά τούς μεσους αίώνας (Athens 1906) I, no. 10 Google Scholar, gives the three-way treaty between Venice, Theodoros Palaiologos, and Nerio Acciaiuoli of Corinth.
36 ASVe Senato Mar r. 4, f. 42v for 27 March 1451. Thiriet #2851. Jacoby, Féodalité, part 2, ch. 3 ‘Nauplié et Argos’ discusses a number of issues that reflect details of the Assizes.
37 Nauplion petition: no.l. The first section of the petition is copied almost word for word, with variants in spelling - such as ‘bocca de lovi’ - from the Nauplion petition of 22 June 1445. ASVe Senato Mar r. 2 f. 88. Sathas, , Μνημεΐα IV, 187 Google Scholar.
38 Matters did not go well and in May 1452 the senate dealt with another petition from Nauplion about the Argos fiefs. Again, the rettor of Argos was to make the assignments in that territory, and appeals were to be heard in Nauplion. ASVe Senato Mar r. 4, f. 122r. Thiriet, Régestes, no. 2888.
39 ASVe Stato Mar r. 4, f. 17v for 27 October 1450. Unfortunately, the senate document gives no information other than the fact that Fantalouris had denounced someone. The name Fantalouris does not appear in the PLP although it is known in Nauplion for the 15-16th centuries. For more on the family, who were merchants with their own ship, Malevitis, K., ‘H Μονή Μεταμορφώσεως Καραθώνας Ναυπλίου’, in Ναυπλια/cá Ανάλεκτα IV (2000) 274 Google Scholar and n. 9. Kaligas appears in the PLP six times, no.10328-no. 10332, although not for the Morea.
40 An earlier land fraud is discussed in Jacoby, Féodalité, 219, in which Johannes and Helena Vlacho were stripped, in 1426, by the Minor Consiglio of land they had acquired from Niccolò of Athens.
41 ASVe Senato Mar r. 4 f. 17v for 27 October 1450. Wright, and Melville-Jones, , Bartolomeo Minio, xxx-xxxi,Google Scholar gives an account of the kind of violence the intense competition for land could engender.
42 The title for ‘governor’ was κεφαλή. Sphrantzes § XIX, 11.
43 Argos petition: no. 6. The original text is in Appendix 2.
44 Catuna, catund: the impermanent encampment of an Albanian clan.
45 The fifteenth-century Kiveri is now known as Myloi. (The present Kiveri is two miles further down the coast.) It was a major Venetian fief, and there are remains of a hill fortification overlooking the marshes and the coast road. The main routes from Argos-Nauplion into the Morea, and down the coast to Astros, passed through here. The wall that marked the Despotate-Venetian boundary ran from the hill to the sea: parts of this wall and two towers can still be seen. Photographs and more information at http://surprisedbytime.blogspot. com/2009/09/frogs.html
46 The struttoti were ordered to hang some of the unfortunates. The site of Mouchli’s ‘forks’ - or anything else, for that matter - is unknowable. Nauplion’s ‘forks’ are identified outside the wall of Nauplion in a map of 1571 taken from a Venetian map of at least two generations earlier where the forks consist of two forked poles supporting a beam. The map is available at http://nauplion.net/ Camoccio%20map.htm. Such gallows can be seen in Pisanello’s ‘St. George and the Princess of Trebizond.’
47 Perigrino Venerio di Bernardo. He died the next year and was replaced by Nicolò Valier q. Paolo. Rulers of Venice, Records, no. 20, no. 22. Hopf, Chroniques 382-3.
48 Stratioti were supposed to supply their own horses, and the Argos petition refers to hiring stratioti by providing the customary land and two ducats as a hiring bonus. Argos petition: no. 4.
49 Argos petition: no. 4. The emphasis here on Greek stratioti is important, as struttoti were more often Albanian.
50 ASVe Senato Misti r. 52, f. 95v. Sathas, , Μνεμεια III, 175 Google Scholar, 11 June 1418.
51 Thiriet, Régestes, no. 2835.
52 Simultaneously, Athanasios Laskaris was in Venice as ambassador from Mistra to protest raids from Methoni-Koroni on the Despotate. ASVe Stato Mar r. 4, f. 2. Thiriet, Régestes, no. 2835.
53 Sphrantzes, § XXIV, 9. Paul Asan was formerly governor of the city of Constantinople. Demetrios and Theodora were married in 1441.
54 Necipoğlu, N., Byzantium between the Ottomans and the Latins (Cambridge 2009) 279-81CrossRefGoogle Scholar, gives extensive information on Paul and Matthaios Asan, but draws too hard a line between the loyalties of the Asanes to Demetrios Palaiologos and the Ralles to Thomas Palaiologos. There are a number of possible indications that the sympathies of this Asan, regardless of his personal fate, inclined to the West. For example, Georgios Amir-outzes, a supporter of Union, wrote for Asan a ‘short’ description - 12 printed pages - of what happened at the Council of Florence. Mohler, L., ‘Eine bisher verlorene Schrift von Georgios Amirutzes über das Konzil von Florenz’, Oriens Christianus n.s. 9 (1920) 20–35 Google Scholar. An undated letter of consolation to Asan on the deaths of three adult sons indicates that they were all killed fighting against the Turks. Lampros, S., Παλαιολόγεια каі Πελοπονησιακά (Athens 1921) 1 Google Scholar. 249. With one exception, the Asan name is absent in accounts of Greeks who went to the West, and in lists of Venetian stratioti.
55 Zakythinos, D., Le despotat grec de Morée (Paris 1975) II, 114 Google Scholar, relates that in March 1453, Venice sent Paul Morosini to the despot Demetrios to claim damages for his molestations of Nauplion and Argos with Demetrios Asan. There seems to have been no resolution of the matter. Zakythinos says that Demetrios Asan was the brother-in-law of Demetrios Palaiologos but no contemporary document links the two, nor does any link Demetrios Asan with Paul or Matthaios Asan. The PLP gives no family information for Demetrios Asan (no. 1492, no. 91370) beyond mention of children, and does not know of the three documents discussed in this paper. Isenberg, W., Europäische Stammtafeln (Marburg 1975-78) no. 171 Google Scholar puts Demetrios tentatively in the family of Konstantinos Palaiologos Asanes and his son Michael Komnenos Tornikes Palaiologos Asanes: there is no documentary evidence for or against this.
56 Mouchli was a new city, founded in the 1270s for its defensive site at the end of a major mountain pass. An aerial photograph makes clear its position and why the site was selected: see http://surprisedbytime.blog spot.com/2010/05/archons-demetrios-laskaris-asan-of.html. Andronikos Asan, Byzantine governor of the Morea between 1316 and 1322, was the son of Ivan III of Bulgaria and Eirene Palaiologos, sister of Andronikos II who appointed him to the position.
57 Bodnar, E., Cyriac of Ancona: later travels (Cambridge, MA 2003) letter I, 9 Google Scholar.
58 Sphrantzes, § XXVII, 4.
59 Several other governors are included in this list of names. ASVe Documenti Turchi b. 1/11, Also, Miklosich, F. and Müller, I., Acta et diplomata graeca medii aevi sacra et profana (1865) III, 290 Google Scholar. The text and translation can be found at http://angiolello.net/ARCHONS.pdf. I have an analysis of this document with identifications in my forthcoming book, The knight and death: the Kladas affair and the 15th-century Morea.
60 ASVe Senato Secreti r. 20 f. 105 for 12 Nov 1456. Also Sathas, Μνημεΐα 1:#153.
61 Laionici Chalcocandylae Historiarum Demonstrationes, ed. Darkó, E. (Budapest 1922) II, 206 Google Scholar. Sphrantzes, § XXXVIII, 1. Kritovoulos, , History of Mehmed the Conqueror, trans., Riggs, C. (Princeton 1954) III, 22 Google Scholar.
62 Doukas XLV. 12: Παραλαβών οΰν πασαν τήν Πελοπόννησον κοά έγκαταστήσας άρχηγοΰς καί ήγεμόνας, αύτος είς τήν Αδριανοΰ ώμησε, φέρων μετ’ αύτοΰ πανοικί τον Δημέτριον, αγων σύν αύτφ καί τοΰς παλατίου καί τούς λογάδας και εύτυχεΐς πάσης Άχαίας, Λακεδαιμονίας καί τών λοιπών έπορχιών. The consideration shown to Asan’s daughter, wife of the ruler of Athens, suggests some favour from Mehmed. Bryer, A., ‘The Roman Orthodox world’, in Shepard, J. (ed.), The Cambridge history of the Byzantine empire, с 500-1492 (Cambridge 2008) 875 Google Scholar. Philippides, M., An anonymous Greek chronicle: Έκθεσις Χρόνικη (Brookline, MA 1990) § 53 Google Scholar. Asans have not shown up so far in subsequent lists of stratioti.
63 Choras: έτοΰτο.
64 Choras: εΐδαν ...
65 Petros Haritatos suggested to me that μπαργιζένοι for prison guards derives ultimately from bargello, ‘fortified tower.’
66 Translation by Diana Gilliland Wright.
67 Palati: administrative building and residence of the podestà or provveditore or rettor: there is no implication of luxury.
68 Five hundred ducats is an extraordinarily large fine in the context of Venetian jurisprudence, let alone if one considers the steady reports of the shortages of coin in the stato da mar. This figure should probably be regarded as poetic license, although if Anonymous was being held on issues of land fraud, the fine might be a reflection of the value of the land or of his profits over several years.
69 Kiveri. See n. 45.