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The fair of Agios Demetrios of 26 October 1449:
Byzantine-Venetian relations and land issues
in mid-century
*
Diana Gilliland Wright
Independent scholar
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 inci-
dent 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.
The incidents around the 1449 Nauplion fair of Agios Demetrios portray perfectly the
complex web of social and political relationships that had been developing for years
within the Venetian territories of Argos and Nauplion, and between them and the
Despotate of the Morea.
At mid-century, the Morea was ruled by two despots under Constantinople. Deme-
trios Palaiologos controlled primarily the eastern and southern parts of the peninsula
from Mistra, while his older brother Thomas controlled the Corinthia, the north and
the west, moving his capital between Leondari and Patras.
1
Two comparatively small
areas −the western half of the Argolid and the southern half of the Messenian peninsula −
remained under the control of Venice. Since the late fourteenth century, Albanian immi-
gration, and reproduction, had been so abundant that, by the time of the feast of Agios
Demetrios in 1449, Albanians were as much as 60% of the population in some areas. The
Albanian culture of clans migrating with their herds often came into conflict with the
Veneto-Byzantine culture which depended on settled paroikoi −villeins −who worked
assigned land. On the other hand, the political protection clans with their herds of
* 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, Constan-
tine, and Thomas Palaiologos in 1428−29.
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies Vol. 37 No. 1 (2013) 63–80
© 2013 Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham
DOI: 10.1179/0307013112Z.00000000019
horses provided armed servitors for Byzantine archons and mounted soldiers for the
Venetian territories.
Three documents, one Greek and two Venetian, carry the memory of the fair of
Agios Demetrios of 1449 as a crisis point in relations with the Despotate. They
portray territories under great economic and social stress, within themselves, with the
Despotate of the Morea, among Greek, Venetian and Albanian subjects, and create a
mosaic of information about the friable Moreote culture at the end of the Byzantine
empire. Until the Greek document was published in 1998, the Agios Demetrios fair
had not been known at Nauplion: a reference to it in a Venetian source had gone unob-
served by several previous scholars who made use of the document. In fact, this is the only
documentation for any fair at Nauplion until 1525.
2
Two of the three documents discussed here specifically name the fair of Agios Deme-
trios of 1449 –τόπανεγύριν τοῦΝαυπλιοῦτοῦμέγα Δημητρίου,la domenega di che fo ali
fete Di[mi]tri. The Greek document (Appendix 1) is an anonymous narrative, dated 22
March 1451, relating the injustices of the Venetian administrations of Nauplion and
Argos, and the injustice of Demetrios Asan, κεφάλη, governor, of Mouchli. Taking the
date of the complaint and the periods of time mentioned in it, one can date the fair to
Sunday, 26 October 1449. The Venetian report of the fair (Appendix 2) is from a petition
from Argos dated 20 July 1451, and the conjunction of domenega and li fete Di[mi]tri
allows its fair to be identified with that of 1449 as well. The third document, a parallel
petition from Nauplion, clarifies problems mentioned in the Argos petition.
The first narrative, ‘The complaint of the anonymous Naupliote’, was published in
1998 by Georgios Athanasios Choras in ΝαυπλιακάΑνάλεκτα,a short-lived and
difficult-to-find journal.
3
There is no reason to doubt the date of 22 March 1451 given
in the text. The complaint is written in demotic Greek political verse. The copyist has
included accents and writes the western date in Greek numerals. Several phrasings and
antitheses are typical of Greek folk-narratives ‒Ἄρχοντες καὶἀδελφοί,μικροίτε καὶ
μεγάλοι;νὰεἴχεν ἀστράψει ἡἈνατολή,νὰεἴχε βροντήσει <ἡ>Δύση,ἀπότες ἀναθράφημεν
καὶεἴδαμεν τὸνκόσμον,kεἶδαν κακὸνlἀπὸἐκείνους καλὸνδὲντοὺςἐφάνη. Some Vene-
tian terms are used −ποδεστάς−podestà, παλάτι −palati, ρετούρης −rettor,συντίκοι −
sindici −but the Greek noun and verb forms are conventional. Two interesting for-
mations come originally from Latin terms −συντιχάρη,μπαργιζένοι.
The anonymous Greek complainer is writing from prison in Nauplion where he will
be for a very long time. He addresses himself rhetorically to ’archons and brothers’−to
his peers, and also to those, it will later appear, whose testimony put him in prison,
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. K. Sathas, ΜνημεῖαἙλληνικῆςἱστορίας/Documents inédits relatifs à l’historie de la Grèce au Moyen
Âge (Paris 1880−90) VI, 245. Modon had a fair of Madonna santa Maria on the beach at the feast of the
Assumption of the Virgin in August. Sathas, ΜνημεῖαIV, 27, for 6 November 1465.
3 G. Choras, ‘Αυτοβιογραφικόστιχούργημα Ναυπλιώτη (1451)’,ΝαυπλιακάΑνάλεκτα III (1998) 348−63:
Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1097, f. 290v−291r.
64 Diana Gilliland Wright
ending with a threat to these archons. He says that there was an incident at the fair of
Agios Demetrios in which an Albanian named Spatharos was wounded (and died).
4
Spatharos’brothers claimed that Anonymous, driven by jealousy, was responsible. The
governor banned Anonymous from the territory, and the Albanians took advantage of
the confusion to seize his animals which he had taken to sell at the fair. He went to
Mouchli in the Despotate to complain to the governor, Asan, about the Albanians,
who had come to the fair from the Despotate. Asan put him in prison and examined
him under torture with the rope −strappado −over a period of four months.
Information on judicial process in the Despotate is nearly nonexistent, so this is of
particular value. Whether Anonymous was of the torturable classes,
5
or whether this
was the Despotate’s−or Asan’s−normal practice with complainants,
6
we do not
know, although we can be sure he has not told us everything. At the end of the four
months of Mouchli justice, Anonymous was sent back to Venetian territory with an
armed guard and a writ of acquittal. Here he tries to assert his loyalty to Venice: Ἐγὼ
δέ,διὰτὸντόπον μου καὶδιὰτὴνΑὐθεντιάν μου,/ἠθέλησα πάλε νὰἐλθῶεἰςτόπον τοῦ
Ἁγίου Μάρκου (’I, for the sake of my land and my lord, wanted to return to the territory
of S. Marco.’) This brings the date to late February or early March.
Anonymous went to Venetian-held Argos
7
where, because of jealousy on the part of
the ’Christians,’he was again imprisoned, this time in a private home.
8
After two and a
half months −as the result of further unjust plotting against him −the Argos podestà
9
wrote out an order to take him to Nauplion. This brings the date to the early summer
of 1450.
4 The name, Spatharos, is known for the Argolid. D. Wright and J. Melville-Jones, The Greek correspon-
dence of Bartolomeo Minio. Vol. I: Dispacci from Nauplion, 1479–1483 (Padua 2008) 252, names an
Andreas Spatharos as a kapetanios taking stratioti to Italy. For the name and variants, E. Trapp, Prosopogra-
phisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit (Vienna 2001;hereafter, PLP) 26436−42.
5‘The torturable classes’is a phrase from Graham Greene’sOur Man in Havana. Roman law had cat-
egories of individuals for whom torture was required in giving testimony, although the classes are never per-
fectly defined and much depended on the individual judge. A. H. M. Jones, The later Roman empire, 284-602
(Baltimore 1964) 1: 519. Also, J. Perkins, ’Early Christian and judicial bodies’, in M. Th. Fögen and M. Lee
(eds), Bodies and boundaries in Graeco-Roman Antiquity (Berlin 2009) 247−9.
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, Μνημεἰ
˜
α1: #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. G. Sphrantzes, Memorii, 1401-1477, ed. V. Grecu, Pseudo-Sphrantzes: Macarie Melissenos
Cronica, 1258-1481 (Bucharest 1966) § XVII, 10.
9 The podestà was probably Nicolò Valier q. Paolo. Rulers of Venice, 1332-1524: Interpretations,
Methods, Database, eds M. O’Connell, B. Kohl, et al. (ACLS Humanities E-Book 2009) q.v. Maps, Argos,
records #20, #22. Also, Chroniques Grèco-Romanes inédits ou peu connues ed. C. Hopf (Berlin 1873)
382−3. The titles of podestà, rettor, and provveditor are used somewhat interchangeably for ‘governor’.
The fair of Agios Demetrios 65
In Nauplion, from which Anonymous had been banned the previous October,
podestà Priam Contarini held a formal hearing on the case which involved witnesses
and documents. Some of the witnesses against Anonymous are called ‘archons’, which
means that they were Greek land-holders, and one begins to get the impression that
the original incident must have been considerably more complex than he has said. As
with the information about Asan’s justice, this document is the unique source for infor-
mation about Venetian justice in Argos and Nauplion.
It is an article of faith that a governor of a Venetian città made judicial decisions with
the aid of two patrician consiglieri, councillors,appointed from Venice.
10
However, the
anonymous complaint gives evidence for ad hoc solutions in showing Fra Nicolò, a Fran-
ciscan priest, and Marin Catello, a citizen of Nauplion, acting as consiglieri in this nar-
rative.
11
Both men fit well into what is known about Nauplion: The Catello family,
originally Apulian, had lived in Nauplion at least since before 1308. Names of the
family, who came to be identified as Greek and Orthodox, and include a nun and a
priest, have a disproportionate representation in the sparse survivals of documents con-
cerning Nauplion residents.
12
As for Fra Nicolò, there was a small Franciscan friary in
Nauplion and città governors were sometimes told to save money by making use of
the local friars.
13
During the hearing, Anonymous complained about the injustice of the people of
Nauplion. The consiglieri told him he should make his complaint about the people of
Nauplion to the sindici.
14
That was when Anonymous made a big mistake. He muttered
an obscenity in Greek: kκαὶlεἶπα ὅτι χέζω τους ἐκείνους τοὺς Ναυπλιῶτες (‘I said that I
s**t on the Naupliotes.’) Or that is what he claimed he had said, but he obviously did not
10 There are two mentions of consiglieri in Nauplion in 162 years. Sathas, Μνημεῖα4: 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, ΜνημεῖαI,
290 −1 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, D. Jacoby, La féodalité
en Grèce médiévale: ‘Les Assises de Romanie,’sources, application et diffusion (Paris 1971) 217−18. Also,
A. Tsavara, ‘Devozione, violenza e uva passa: Le famiglie di Mourmouris e Catello di Nauplion nel XV
secolo’,inI Greci durante la venetocrazia: Uomini, spazio, idee (XIII-XVIII sec) (Venice 2009) 597−611.
Choras, ‘Αυτοβιογραφικό’, 354, no. 10.
13 B. Ploumides, ‘Ἐιδήσεις για το Βενετοκρατούμενο Ναύπλιο´,Πελοποννησιακά7 (1971) 266, no. 38 for
1491 and no. 39 for 1493: the Senate directs the use of the four Franciscans of Santa Maria vallis 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.
66 Diana Gilliland Wright
realize how well Priam Contarini spoke Greek.
15
We can be fairly sure that Catello also
spoke Greek, as his family had been in Nauplion for at least five generations. Since Anon-
ymous specified that there were four of them alone, there was therefore no interpreter
who normally would have recorded the hearing. Given that there were archons as wit-
nesses, the hearing must have been conducted both in Italian and Greek. So when Anon-
ymous muttered his obscenity, it made any appeal to the sindici problematical because
when the members of the hearing wrote up the charge,
16
αὐτοὶδὲτὸμετάτρεψεν kσεl
[καὶεἶπαν ὅτι]χέζω τοὺς συντίχους.(‘They changed it <TO>“I s**t on the syndics.”’)
17
It is possible that Contarini misheard a muttered ἐκείνους as συντίχους. However, by
this point in the narrative, Anonymous has established his own personality firmly
enough so that Contarini appears the more reliable.
Anonymous was fined 500 ducats, banned from the territory, and imprisoned
without being allowed to see his family. At the end of his complaint he is sitting in jail,
locked up every evening by four guards.
18
There need not be a conflict between banish-
ment and continued imprisonment, if he were being held until he could be heard by the
sindici. If so, he would have to wait, at a minimum, until the winter of the following year
for his case to be heard. The next sindici for Greece were not appointed until eighteen
months after this complaint, in late September of 1452.
19
*******
The week after the fair of Agios Demetrios of 26 October 1449, the Venetian cho-
monanza or comunnaza
20
of Argos wrote a petition to the Signoria of Venice which
included their own complaint against Asan and what had happened at the fair. In this
context, a petition comes to us as the record of the Venetian senate’s action on a particu-
lar matter and the document on which they voted. The Senato Mar register holds a copy
of the petition under discussion and after each item of the petition, the senate’s decision
and the final vote: the petition has the date of the senate action, not of the original
request. This petition and the one from Nauplion were answered by the senate on 26
July 1451, and together the two provide extensive information about the governance
15 Nauplion petition no. 4: ‘misser Priamo Contarini 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.’
P. Topping, Feudal institutions as revealed in the Assizes of Romania (Philadelphia 1949) no. 168.
17 This line −αὐτοὶδὲτὸμετάτρεψεν καὶεἶπαν ὅτι σε χέζω τοὺς συντίχους −has too many syllables for the
meter. The substitution of σε for καὶεἶπαν ὅτι 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.
The fair of Agios Demetrios 67
of the two cities.
21
What is important here is that there has been a great deal of rivalry,
and even hostility, between Nauplion and Argos for residents and tax money, and by
extension, between and within various cultural groupings, with residents of Nauplion
holding lands in what had become Argos territory. The particular situation had begun
nine years earlier, in 1442, when Argos acquired a separate administration, after
having been administered by Nauplion since 1397.
22
Anonymous had described Argos as τὸἌργος τὸπαμπόνηρον καὶκατεξουρισμένον,
which I have loosely translated as ‘piss-poor, thuggish Argos.’Nauplion, wanting to
return Argos to its former subordinate position, claimed that in comparison to Nauplion,
Argos was a village with a warehouse, inhabited only by people who work the land −all
of them foreigners, and given the number of families, probably not more than a total
population of 400 −while Nauplion had solid citizens.
23
These foreigners were primarily
Albanians whom the Venetian administration had encouraged, with various tax cuts and
suspensions, to move into the empty houses left after the Ottoman invasion of 3 June
1397 that burned the city and took away some 14,000 people from the area.
24
The
Argos petition states that Argos has 115 households −’not counting others who come
from time to time’.
25
Strikingly, the two petitions themselves give linguistic support to the descriptions of
Argos by Anonymous and the Nauplion petition. The secretary who recorded both of the
petitions obviously copied from the original texts as he preserved the Venetian-Italian
dialect of section six of the petition from Argos with its fragile sentences, arbitrary
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 aban-
doned 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.1. 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.
68 Diana Gilliland Wright
suffixes, and frightful spelling (Appendix 2). The rest of the Argos petition, and the one
from Nauplion, have less dialect, and more conventional grammar and spelling. The
senate’s responses to the individual items in both petitions are in Latin.
Before the division of authority in 1442, individuals who were banned for
murder were banned from the whole area. After 1442, it was common for individuals
banned −banishment was generally reserved for violence or murder −from Argos
simply to go over to Nauplion, or vice versa. The situation had become unmanageable
for both cities and Nauplion petitioned Venice to decree that banishment from either
city again meant banishment from both. This was granted in the Nauplion petition of
July 1451, and it is possible that the case of Anonymous had been one of the incidents
prompting that petition.
26
Nauplion also petitioned for a return to the earlier practice
whereby the rettor of Argos could not proceed in a criminal matter without the direction
of the podestà of Nauplion, but this was refused by the senate.
27
The significance of this
will be seen shortly.
Due to the split in administration, the Argos authorities did not have the formal
records of property sales, fiefs, and leases in their territory, and the Nauplion adminis-
tration refused to allow copies to be made of these records in their files. The Argos chan-
cellor, who did have the records, had been taken captive by the Turks, and when his
things were sent back to his family in Venice, his land records also went to Venice.
Elders who knew the property lines were dying out.
28
Without legal land records it
was impossible for Argos to identify revenues accurately, or for Argos families to give
lands to their daughters as dowries or to their sons as inheritances.
29
Earlier, in a letter of 27 October 1450,
30
the senate had acknowledged a letter from
the rettor of Nauplion which had stated that many of the good lands and vineyards had
been assigned to Albanians and other foreigners who had moved in because of the tax
concessions −they were free of all payments and personal service except guard duty −
and that these concessions were extremely detrimental to the tax base which was
supposed to pay administrative salaries and rebuild ruined walls which ought to have
been repaired years before. Argos insisted that holders of property in that territory had
to live in Argos, while Nauplion insisted that Naupliotes holding property in Argos
territory could live anywhere they chose.
What had happened was that the property assignments made by Nauplion, in the
40-plus years during which the cities were under joint authority, were producing reven-
ues that went to the Nauplion treasury, whether they were in Argos territory or Nauplion
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.
The fair of Agios Demetrios 69
territory. The many fewer land assignments made by Argos, since it had acquired its own
administration eight years earlier, produced much less revenue for Argos than would
have been available had Argos been able to control all the landholdings within that ter-
ritory. The tracts of land assigned to the immigrants were not in question. The lands at
issue were the fiefs which were inheritable,
31
and the large tracts of land rented out by the
administration for some period of time −five to ten, possibly twenty-nine, years −to indi-
viduals who should return the land ‘either in the same condition as when it was received,
or better, and not worse.’
32
In both petitions there are references to ‘custom’−‘segond usanza e consueto del
paese’. The Latins held Argos and Nauplion in the years after 1204 from the Prince of
Achaia, who paid homage to the Prince of the Morea. The system of feudal law and
custom established, called the Assizes of Romania, came originally from Champagne
with colonial situations informed by the Assizes of Jerusalem developed in the crusader
East.
33
When Venice acquired Nauplion in 1388,
34
and Argos in 1394, from a young
heiress −by request of local citizens (encouraged by strategic gifts)
35
−Venice agreed to
govern ‘in accordance with custom,’and in time put together collections of the Assizes
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 −afief 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 subsis-
tence 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. G. Thomas (New York 1966) II, no. 126 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 A. Luttrell, ‘The Latins of Argos and
Nauplion: 1311-1394’,Papers of the British School at Rome 34 (1966) 34−55. 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. F. Gregorovius, Ἱστορίατῆςπόλεως Ἀθηνῶν κατὰτοὺςμέσους αίώνας (Athens 1906) I, no. 10, gives
the three-way treaty between Venice, Theodoros Palaiologos, and Nerio Acciaiuoli of Corinth.
70 Diana Gilliland Wright
to assist its administrators, an arrangement specific to Argos-Nauplion, Negroponte, and
some islands, acquired from Latin owners. Over the years many differences had been
identified between the Argos-Nauplion customs and those of Negroponte, and in
1451 −partly because the customs of Negroponte were inherited from Lombard
custom, and those of Argos-Nauplion from the French, both with their own interpret-
ations of Byzantine, and certainly the need had been highlighted by all these problems
between Nauplion and Argos −Venice asked for a new collection and harmonization
of customs to be made.
36
In its petition, Nauplion claimed it was in la bocha di lovi.
37
These città of the stato mar
were administered on such small budgets and there were so many demands on territorial
income that this was not an exaggeration. Città were expected to be self-supporting and
to pay their own way. In the October letter, the senate directed that all concessions in
Argos and Nauplion held for more than ten years were to be terminated and the lands
put up for new leases of five to ten years, which would raise more funds. Nauplion was
to keep a separate book of accounts in Greek for these lands. Furthermore, Nauplion
wanted to make all land assignments for both territories, while Argos felt entitled to
control its own, particularly as the administration could make a small profit from sales
and rentals of land. The senate specified that Argos could indeed administer its own
lands, but that all appeals on land issues were to be handled by the rettor of Nauplion.
38
The October document identified Michalis Kaligas and Andreas Fantalouris who
had reported land frauds and were then rewarded with concessions of the same lands
for five years.
39
This meant that there were, at a minimum, two more Greeks in addition
to Anonymous towards whom other people harboured resentments over land.
40
The
larger landholdings of 100 and 200 stremmata, the ones primarily at issue, could
make a person quite wealthy, and were worth killing for.
41
This document and the
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.1. 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, ΜνημεῖαIV, 187.
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 infor-
mation 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, K. Malevitis, ‘HΜονήΜεταμορφώσεως Καραθώνας Ναυπλίου’,
in ΝαυπλιακάΑνάλεκτα IV (2000) 274 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, gives an account of the kind of violence the intense competition for land could engender.
The fair of Agios Demetrios 71
Anonymous complaint, as well as the instructions to keep a copy of the records in Greek,
together sketch out a Nauplion community of well-off Greeks in trade in mid-century. It
is tempting to speculate whether Anonymous was the one whom Fantalouris and Kaligas
had denounced for land fraud. If the hearing for Anonymous had been held in early or
mid-summer of 1450, there was time for a decision to have been made on the matter
in Venice by the end of October. Anonymous did say that archons testified against him.
It was this conflict of jurisdictions that entangled Anonymous. He was from
Nauplion territory but had been banned from there. When he tried to go to Argos
after his miserable months in Mouchli, people who were afraid he would take something
of theirs −very probably their land, as Kaligas and Fantalouris had succeeded in doing −
saw to it that he was imprisoned, and then ‘unjustly’plotted to banish and imprison him
and to destroy his children. The fact that at every point Anonymous made claims of plots
against him did not mean he was wrong about every plot. It is within reason that he knew
of others whose property leases had been discredited, and he would have known Kaligas
and Fantalouris whether or not they were his accusers. Argos had imprisoned him, and
then sent him over for Nauplion to settle an issue that could not be handled in Argos. If
murder or some other criminal action had been at issue, he would have been kept in
Argos. Anonymous seems to have been caught in an inter-jurisdictional issue in the pre-
vious year before the details of handling such issues had been worked out. His private
narrative fits well within what the two petitions have to say about the conflicts
between the two places over authority and the anxiety regarding land holdings, as well
as what they say about problems with the Despotate.
Both cities complained about the problem of the chiefali or zefali
42
of Mouchli and
his Albanians who came into the territories, fed their flocks without paying the pasturage
fee, raided farms and vineyards, caused trouble generally, and sometimes committed
murder. The Nauplion petition is brief in this matter, stating that the zefali, Demetrios
Lascaris Asan, would come into the territory, force Albanians into his service, and
collect payments in cash from them. Of course, this impinged on the ability of the
Albanians to pay Nauplion taxes. In contrast, section six of the Argos petition turns
its information about Asan into a drama:
43
Also, about the Abanians who live in the territory of Your Excellent Signoria −He
[Asan] orders them about and attacks and beats them, and takes them by force
and imprisons them, and judges them in his way and says that they are his and
not the Signoria’s. And he makes the chief of the catuna
44
pay 1 gold ducat for
each hearth, for some two ducats, and for some three, according to the families
that he has. The said chief is called the primicerio, and if he doesn’t pay immediately,
his cow or horse or sheep is taken, and he is put in prison. Because of this they ask
the favour that they be protected so that they want to be under Your Signoria rather
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.
72 Diana Gilliland Wright
than under Greeks. La chiefali of Mouchli is named Dimitri Laskaris. He came to
trade at the Fair of S. Francesco at Kiveri,
45
that was last Saturday and that he
should favour our journey, for we wanted to go to Venetian territory for the one at
Nauplion since I trade with him [?] And the Sunday which was the fair of Dimitri
we were making our way between Argos and Kiveri. He dashed past the toll post,
and we were surrounded, and we were seized and we were unhorsed and were
taken with an Albanian from Argos who came with us to bring the horses back.
[Our] hands were tied behind the back and we were sent to Mouchli, and put in the
bottom of the tower, and he took from them their horses and two other people were
beaten, and he ordered his stratioti to go execute justice that is, to the forks.
46
And he
struck to the ground and inflicted much dishonour on Messer the Rettor,
47
and had
horses given to us, pretended to let us go on our way, and he sent a man to say
that we would be held in Mouchli. And because of that Messer the Rettor sent the
horseman to see what was going to happen to us, and thus he was held as well.
And he had the horse of Messer the Rettor taken −the poor young man went on
foot −as far as Argos, where he was dismissed, and he ordered the pigs of the
brother of the Albanian whom he had in prison taken. And he sent the Albanian to
take the horse of the priest-teacher and [he said] ‘Give it to me and then I will give
you your pigs!’
Answer. We are writing the Lord Despot Demetrios in the usual form to satisfy
custom that he should see that similar incidents do not occur.
It is a fine and pathetic narrative, jumbled in sequence, not all of it adequately explained,
and contains a remarkable amount of information about Demetrios Laskaris Asan who
was apparently inclined to arbitrary violence, extortion, raiding, kidnapping, murder,
horse-theft, violation of the inviolable status of messengers, and pig-stealing. The grie-
vances provide the only indication we have that horses and pigs were raised in Venetian
Argos-Nauplion territory.
48
It is also the only reference to a fair of S. Francesco and to a
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 stratioti 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.
The fair of Agios Demetrios 73
Franciscan establishment at Kiveri. A separate entry in the petition says that the fifteen
Greek stratioti stationed at Argos for defense could not, in fact, defend against these
attacks because they had to be out working on their farms.
49
The information we have about raiding is from Venetian sources which primarily
record raids on Venetian areas. Sometimes the raiders are called ‘Greeks ’,or‘soldiers
of the despot’, or at other times ‘Greeks and Albanians.’At the time of these documents,
Nauplion was trying to get back Didymo and the fortress of Kastri seized by Demetrios
Palaiologos immediately after arriving in the Morea, as well as Thermissi taken by Theo-
doros Palaiologos a few years earlier. Venice occasionally made retaliation for major
raids, such as hanging four Albanians for looting near Koron
50
or impounding the
trade goods of some archon, as it did in 1452,
51
but for the most part Venice made
demarches.
52
Ambassadors were sent to Mouchli, and in parallel with these documents,
two different ambassadors were sent to Constantinople to protest the Moreote raids, as
well as other matters.
The person Anonymous calls Asan is called Demetrios Laskaris in the Argos and
Nauplion documents because Venetians used only two names and disregarded the some-
times multiple Greek names. It is quite probable that his name was Demetrios Laskaris
Asan. There are threads of information for a Demetrios Asan, and threads for a Deme-
trios Laskaris, and it is difficult to be sure where these threads tie together and where
they should be allowed to dangle. One branch of the Asan family in the Morea had
come to the Morea with Demetrios Palaiologos when he became Despot in 1449, the
year of this fair, because of his marriage to Theodora Asanina, daughter of Paul
Asan.
53
Demetrios as despot appointed Paul’s son Matthaios as governor of Corinth,
and it was Matthaios who eventually surrendered Corinth to Mehmed II and who
arranged the formalities for the surrender of Demetrios Palaiologos and Mistra.
54
49 Argos petition: no. 4. The emphasis here on Greek stratioti is important, as stratioti were more often
Albanian.
50 ASVe Senato Misti r. 52, f. 95v. Sathas, Μνεμεια III, 175, 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 N. Necipoğlu, Byzantium between the Ottomans and the Latins (Cambridge 2009) 279−81, gives exten-
sive 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. L. Mohler, ‘Eine bisher verlorene Schrift von Georgios Amirutzes über das Konzil von
Florenz’,Oriens Christianus n.s. 9 (1920) 20−35. An undated letter of consolation to Asan on the deaths of
three adult sons indicates that they were all killed fighting against the Turks. S. Lampros, Παλαιολόγεια καὶ
Πελοπονησιακά(Athens 1921) 1. 249. With one exception, the Asan name is absent in accounts of Greeks
who went to the West, and in lists of Venetian stratioti.
74 Diana Gilliland Wright
Despite efforts to connect Demetrios Asan with Matthaios,
55
he appears to come
from the older Asan branch which arrived in the Morea when Andronikos Asan was gov-
ernor of the Morea between 1316−22. Andronikos had rebuilt the fortress of Mouchli to
guard the eastern route into the Morea from the Argolid.
56
Asans became prominent in
affairs in Constantinople and the Morea, and there were a number of Palaiologos-Asan
marriages over several generations. Cyriaco of Ancona met the Demetrios Asan of the
raids when he was governor of Corinth at the end of 1443,
57
just after Constantine
arrived to take over the Despotate of Mistra from his brother Theodoros II. As Constan-
tine did not make formal appointments of governors until 1445,
58
it appears that Deme-
trios Laskaris Asan had been appointed to Corinth by Theodoros, and that Constantine
made his appointments and transferals only after he learned the personalities and situ-
ations in the Morea. This Demetrios Laskaris Asan can be identified with the Demetrios
Laskaris of the Moreote archons whose pragmatic loyalty Mehmed II accepted in Decem-
ber 1454 after the uprisings of 1453−54.
59
Asan offered Mouchli to Venice in the fall of 1456, which Venice did not accept,
although she did accept three other castles from other individuals offered at the same
time.
60
It would seem risky for someone who had pledged loyalty to Mehmed to then
offer his city to Venice, but perhaps Mehmed’s delay in coming to the Morea offered
an opportunity for second thoughts. When Mehmed did come into the Morea
in 1458, Demetrios Asan −whom Sphrantzes bitterly calls ὁκάλος κἀγαθὸςἈσάνης
55 D. Zakythinos, Le despotat grec de Morée (Paris 1975) II, 114, 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 Deme-
trios Asan (no. 1492, no. 91370) beyond mention of children, and does not know of the three documents dis-
cussed in this paper. W. Isenberg, Europäische Stammtafeln (Marburg 1975−78) no. 171 puts Demetrios
tentatively in the family of Konstantinos Palaiologos Asanes and his son Michael Komnenos Tornikes Palaio-
logos 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 Andro-
nikos II who appointed him to the position.
57 E. Bodnar, Cyriac of Ancona: later travels (Cambridge, MA 2003) letter I, 9.
58 Sphrantzes, § XXVII, 4.
59 Several other governors are included in this list of names. ASVe Documenti Turchi b.1/11, Also,
F. Miklosich and I. Müller, Acta et diplomata graeca medii aevi sacra et profana (1865) III, 290. 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, Μνημεῖα1:#153.
The fair of Agios Demetrios 75
Δημέτριος −reasonably surrendered Mouchli to him that June.
61
There is no word on
Asan after 1458, although it was Mehmed’s practice to keep high-ranking individuals
close to him and possibly, later, to appoint them as governors in other areas.
62
Like the information for Asan, the account by Anonymous ends unsatisfactorily.
However, as the sole vernacular narrative by a Greek in the fifteenth century Morea, it
carries a disproportionate weight of information, and there is no reason not to consider
that it reflects a real situation. Given the sparse survivals for Argos, and the erratic nature
of those for Nauplion, the conjunction of these three documents is remarkable. They offer
unique material for further study both of the Despotate and of the Venetian Morea.
APPENDIX 1
+͵αυναʹ Mαρτιοῦ22
Ἄρχοντες καὶἀδελφοί,μικροίτε καὶμεγάλοι
τοιοῦτον γράμμα οἱμέλλοντες θεωρεῖνκαὶἀναγιγνόσκειν
τὸτίπράγμα καὶσυμφορὰἐσυνέβην είςἐμέναν
ὁποὺεἰςἄλλον [[τινὰν]] χριστιανὸν τοιοῦτον μὴσυνέβη.
Ἐγὼἀπ᾿τ᾿Ἀνάπλιν ἤμουνα,ἤμουν ἀναπαημένος.
Καὶἀπὸὅχλησιν,ἡὁποίαἐσυνὲβη
εἰςτόπανεγύριν τοῦΝαυπλιοῦτοῦμέγα Δημετρίου
ἐλαβώθηκεν ἄνθρωπος ὁνόματι Σπαθάρος
καὶἀπὸ᾿κεῖνο ἀπόθανεν ἐκεῖνος ὁΣπαθάρος.
Καὶτινὲςὅπου μοῦκακοθέλασιν καὶεἴχαν σ᾿ἐμὲντὸνφθόνον,
ὅπως νὰμὲἐξορίσωσιν ἀπ᾿τὸἐδικόν μου σπίτι,
ἀνάγκασαν τοὺςἀδελφοῦςἐκείνου τοῦΣπαθάρη
νὰεἰποῦνὅτι ἐγὼτὸνλάβωσα,ἔδε ἁμαρτία μεγάλη!
Τὸὁποῖον,διὰτὸεἰπεῖνἐκείνου τοῦἈλβανίτη,
μὲἔκαμεν ὁποδεστάςνὰλείπω ἀπὼτὴνχώρα.
Ἐκούρσευσαν τὰζῶα μου ἐκεῖνοι οἱἈλβανίτες
καὶέγὼδιὰτὰζῶα μου ὑπῆγα εἰςτὸνἈσάνην.
Ασάνης μὲπερίωρισε,εἰςτὴν φυλακὴνμὲβάνει,
εἰςτὴφυλακήν,στὰσίδερα κακὰπεριορισμένον.
Τέσσαρας μῆνας ἔποικα ἐκεῖπεριορισμος.
Εἰςτὸσκοινὶμὲβάνασιν,διὰνὰμὲἐξετάζουν.
Ἀφότις εἴδαν καθαρὰἐγὼπταίσθης δὲνεἴμαι,
ὅρισαν καὶἀφῆκαν με,ἐλευθερίαν μοῦδίδουν,
κρισιμόγραφον μοῦἔκαμεν ἀθωωτικὸντὸγράμμα
καὶτρεὶς στρατιῶτες μοῦἔδωσαν,διὰνὰμὲσυντροφεύσουν.
61 Laionici Chalcocandylae Historiarum Demonstrationes, ed. E. Darkó (Budapest 1922) II, 206.
Sphrantzes, § XXXVIII, 1. Kritovoulos, History of Mehmed the Conqueror, trans., C. Riggs (Princeton
1954) III, 22.
62 Doukas XLV. 12: Παραλαβὼνοὖνπᾶσαν τὴν Πελοπόννησον καὶἐγκαταστήσας ἀρχηγοὺςκαὶἡγεμόνας,
αὐτὸςεἰςτὴνἈδριανοῦὥμησε,φέρων μετ´αὐτοῦπανοικὶτὸν Δημέτριον,ἄγων σὺναὐτῷκαὶτοὺς παλατίου καὶ
τοὺς λογάδας καὶεὐτυχεῖςπάσης Ἀχαίας,Λακεδαιμονίας καὶτῶν λοιπῶνἐπαρχιῶν. The consideration shown
to Asan’s daughter, wife of the ruler of Athens, suggests some favour from Mehmed. A. Bryer, ‘The Roman
Orthodox world’, in J. Shepard (ed.), The Cambridge history of the Byzantine empire, c. 500-1492 (Cam-
bridge 2008) 875. M. Philippides, An anonymous Greek chronicle: Ἐκθεσις Χρόνικη (Brookline, MA
1990) § 53. Asans have not shown up so far in subsequent lists of stratioti.
76 Diana Gilliland Wright
Ἐγὼδέ,διὰτὸντόπον μου καὶδιὰτὴνΑὐθεντιάν μου,
ἠθέλησα πάλε νὰἐλθῶεἰςτόπον τοῦἉγίου Μάρκου,
εἰςτὸἌργος τὸπαμπόνηρον καὶκατεξουρισμένον,
ὁπού,ὅταν τὸἐθυμήθηκα εἰςτόἌργος διὰνὰἔλθω,
νὰεἴχεν ἀστράψει ἡἈνατολή,νὰεἴχε βροντήσει <ἡ>Δύση
καὶνὰἤθελε γένει καὶχειμὼνἀμέτρητος καὶμέγας,
ὁποὺνά᾿θελα ἐμποδισθῆ,εἰςτὸἌργος νὰμὴνἔλθω.
Ἀπότες ἧλθα καὶἔμπηκα ἐδὼεἰςτὸἌργος ἐτουτί,
63
kεἶδαν κακὸνl
64
ἀπὸἐκείνους,καλὸνδὲντοὺςἐφάνη,
ἐσκόπησαν οἱΧριστιανοὶνὰπάρω τὴν τιμήν των.
Τῆςὥρας ὀρδινιάσασιν,στὴν φυλακὴνμὲβάνουν
ἂμήδ᾿οὐεὐρέθηκεν τινὰςἄρχοντας Βενετσιάνος
καὶἐγγυητὴςἐστάθηκεν,στὸσπίτι του μὲδέχθη
<καὶ>μῆνας δυόμιση ἤμουν μετ᾿αὐτὸν περιορισμος.
Τῆςὥρας δὲὁποδεστὰςἔγραψε νὰμ᾿ἀφήσουν
…ἧταν ὀρδινιὰὅπως νὰμ᾿ἀδικήσουν
οὐδόλας δὲνμἄφηναν ἐκτὴν φυλακὴννὰἔβγω,
εἴχασι δὲτὴνὀρδινιὰνδιὰλόγον νὰμὲπιάσουν
καὶἐγὼὁἄθλιος δὲνἤξευρα τὸἐπιβούλευμάτων,
ὁποὺμοῦἐπιβουλευόνταν ἀδίκως νὰμὲχάσουν
…νὰμὲἐξορίσωσιν καὶνὰμὲφυλακώσουν,
νὰχάσουν τὰπαιδάκια μου,ἔδε ἁμαρτία μεγάλη!
Τὸὁποῖον πρᾶγμα,ἄρχοντες,μικροίτε καὶμεγάλοι,
ἀπότες ἀναθράφημεν καὶεἴδαμεν τὸνκόσμον,
τέτιον πρᾶγμα,πούποτε κανεὶςοὐδὲντὸεἶδε
οὐδὲεἶδεν το ούδὲἤκουσεν τέτιον πρᾶγμα νὰγένει.
Θέλω ἐδῶνὰσᾶςεἰπῶτὶἔναι ὁποῦμοῦσυνέβε,
Μίαν ἡμέραν εἴμεσθεν μέσα εἰςτὸπαλάτιν,
οἱτέσσαροίμας εἴμεσθαν,ἄλλος κανεὶςδὲνἧτον,
Ρετούρης ἤτονε ὁεἰς,φρὰΝιλοκὸςὁἄλλος,
ἤταν δὲκαὶὁκὺρ Μαρίν,λεγόμενος Κατέλος,
ἤμουν καὶἐγὼὁἄθλιος,ὁβαριομοιρασμένος.
Ἐκεῖἐκαταναφέρναμε τινὰἐκτὰδιαβασμένα.
Καὶμέσα εἰςτοῦτο ἄρχοντες εἶπαν διὰτ᾿Ἀνάπλιν
καὶεγὼἐπαρεπονούμουνα τὸπῶςμὲἀδικῆσαν.
Καὶεἷςἀπὸτοὺςἐκεινους τοῦτον τὸνλόγον λέγει,
’Ἀκόμη ἐκεῖνοι τοῦΝαυπλίου σὲθέλουν συντιχάρη.’
Καὶἐγὼμετεωρίστηκα,χωρὶς κακίας μάχος,
<καὶ>εἶπα ὅτι χέζω τους ἐκείνους τοὺς Ναυπλιῶτες,
αὐτοὶδὲτὸμετάτρεψεν καὶεἶπαν ὅτι χέζω τοὺς συντίχους
καὶὁΡετούρης τὸἐκατάδωσε καὶαὐτοὶτὸμαρτυροῦσιν
καὶμέναν ἐζημιώσασιν δουκάτα πεντακόσια
Στὴν φυλακὴνμὲβάνασιν,στὸνπύργον ἀποκάτω
ἐκτὸντόπον μὲἐξώρισαν χρόνους δεκατεσσάρους
καὶδὲνἀφήνουν νὰμὲἰδοῦνἀπὸτούςἐδικούς μου.
Κάθε βράδυ μὲφυλάγουσιν τέσσερις μπαργιζένοι
65
ὅλην τὴνμέραν εἶμαι μοναχὸςκαὶὁΘεὸςνὰμὲβοηθήση
63 Choras: ἐτοῦτο.
64 Choras: εἶδαν …
65 Petros Haritatos suggested to me that μπαργιζένοι for prison guards derives ultimately from bargello,
’fortified tower.’
The fair of Agios Demetrios 77
καὶεἴτις μοῦπταίει,ἄρχοντες,ὁΘεὸςνὰτόνε σώση.
+1451 March 22
66
Archons and brothers, small and great,
you are going to contemplate and understand these lines,
this affair, this disaster that happened to me
may it not happen to any other Christian.
I was from Nauplion, I was comfortably fixed.
What happened is, because of an event
at the Nauplion fair of great Demetrios,
a man by name of Spatharos was wounded
and that Spatharos died of it.
Certain men who wished me ill and were jealous of me,
in order to drive me from my home
forced the brothers of that Spatharos
to say that I wounded him: see what an outrage!
Because of what the Albanian said,
the podestà ordered me to leave the territory.
Those Albanians rustled my animals
and I went to Asan to reclaim those animals.
Asan bound me, he put me in his prison,
in his prison, I was bound with heavy irons.
Four months I lived there bound.
They tortured me with the rope, to examine me.
When they saw clearly I was not at fault,
they decided and released me, they gave me freedom,
they gave a written judgment, a writ of aquittal,
and gave me three stratioti to see me safely on.
I, for the sake of my land and my lord,
wanted to return to the territory of S. Marco,
to piss-poor thuggish Argos,
where, when I remembered Argos, I wanted to go.
Would that there had been lightning in the east, thunder in the west,
would that there had been an endless and great storm,
to prevent me from going to Argos.
When I went and came here to Argos,
I saw [evil] among them, good did not appear.
The Christians expected I would take some valuable of theirs.
Right off they ordered for me to be put in prison.
Unless some Venetian archon was found,
and he stood security; he received me in his house,
two and a half months I was confined in his house.
At that time, the podestà wrote an order to release me,
…it was an order for them to treat me unjustly,
they certainly did not let me go from prison,
they had the order in writing to take me
and I the wretched did not know their contrivance
how they plotted unjustly to destroy me
……. to banish and imprison me,
to destroy my children: see what a terrible crime!
This thing, archons, small and great,
66 Translation by Diana Gilliland Wright.
78 Diana Gilliland Wright
since I was weaned and saw the world,
such a thing, no one has ever seen,
no one ever saw it, no one heard of such a thing happening.
I want you to know, I will say what happened to me.
We were there one day, in the palati,
67
we were four, there was no one else,
the rettor was one, Fra Nicolò another,
there was kyr Marin, known as Catello,
and I the unfortunate, the heavy-fated one.
There we argued back and forth some matter from the papers,
and during that, some archons spoke for Nauplion
and I complained about their injustice to me.
One of them said these very words:
’The people of Nauplion still want you judged by the syndics.’
I blew up, without using violence,
and said that I shit on the people of Nauplion,
but they changed it and said that I shit on the syndics,
The rettor handed down a decision and they witnessed it.
They fined me 500 ducats.
68
They marched me into prison, into the tower dungeon,
they exiled me for 14 years,
and didn’t let my family see me.
Every evening four turnkeys lock me up
every day I am alone, may God help me,
and if anyone wrongs me, archons, God help him.
APPENDIX 2
ASV Senato Mar r. 4, f. 77r
Ad sextum. Ancora per i albanexi che habita in lo luogo de la Exe. Vra. Signoria i quexi fili comanda e
sforza e batesi e tuo esso per forza, e fili prexona e condanali a so muodo e dixe che i xe soi e non de la
Signoria e fili fa pagar duc. 1 d’oro per cadauna casa el cavo de la chatuna a chi do duc. e a chi tre
segondo le fameie che l’a, el dicto cavo vien chiama primichiri, e se non paga si tosto fivien tolto i
suo boy o cavalo o mandra, e fivien mesi in prexon e de questo domanda de gratia che i sia defenda
perche i vol esser ananzi soto la Vostra Signoria cha soto griexi la chiefali de Mochli sia nome
Dimitri Laschari vene achazar ali fie di de Francesco soto Zuner
69
che fo sabbado di era e chel
favesse de la nostra andar che nui volevemo venir in veniexia per queli de Napoli de Romania che fo
acazar con lui e la domenega di che fo ali fete Di[mi]tri andavemo per lo nostro camin infra Argo e
Zuner lanca messo le poste, e fossemo messi in mezo e fossemo pya e fosemo descavalcha e fo prexo
in albanese d’Argo che veniva con nui per condur i cavali in driedo, e fo liga le man de dreido e si fo
manda al Moche [e] fo messo in lo fondo de la tore e tolseli el so cavalo, e fo batudo altre 2 persone
et comanda li pedoni soi che vada a taiar la zustisia, soe la forcha e chaze per terra e inzuriana molto
desonesto misser lo rector, e a nui de fe dar i chavali mostra de lasarne andar per la nostra via, e lui
67 Palati: administrative building and residence of the podestà or provveditore or rettor: there is no impli-
cation 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.
The fair of Agios Demetrios 79
manda omo a dir che fossemo retunudi al Mochi e cossi de fo fato misser lo rector manda el cavalier per
veder che fin sera de nui, e cosi fo retenudo anche lui e fili fe tuor el cavalo che i era de misser lo rector el
povero zovene ande ape infina Argo, quando ne fo da combia e manda a tuor li porchi del fradelo de
l’albanexe che l’avea in prexon e inseniava l’albanexe va a tuor el cavalo de preio gramatico e
dumelo e po te daro li to porzi.
Respondeatur. Scribemus domino despoto Demetrio in forma convenienti pro satisfacione moro et
ut provibat quod similia de cetero non comittantur.
80 Diana Gilliland Wright