Avicenna[653] described (about the year 1000) two sorts of mastich, the white or Roman (i.e. Mediterranean or Christian), and the dark or Nabathæan,—the latter probably one of the Eastern forms of the drug mentioned at [p. 165].
Benjamin of Tudela,[654] who visited the island of Scio when travelling to the East about a.d. 1160-1173, also refers to it yielding mastich, which in fact has always been one of its most important productions, and from the earliest times intimately connected with its history.
Mastich was prescribed in the 13th century by the Welsh “Meddygon Myddvai” as an ingredient of ointments.
In the middle ages the mastich of Scio was held as a monopoly by the Greek emperors, one of whom, Michael Paleologus in 1261, permitted the Genoese to settle in the island. His successor Andronicus II. conceded in 1304 the administration of the island to Benedetto Zaccaria, a rich patrician of Genoa and the proprietor of the alum works of Fokia (the ancient Phocæa), north-west of Smyrna, for ten years, renouncing all tribute during that period. The concession was very lucrative, a large revenue being derived from the Contrata del Mastico or Mastich district: and the Zaccaria family, taking advantage of the weakness of the emperor, determined to hold it as long as possible. In fact they made themselves the real sovereigns of Scio and of some of the adjacent islands, and retained their position until expelled by Andronicus III. in 1329.[655]
The island was retaken by the Genoese under Simone Vignosi in 1346; and then by a remarkable series of events became the property of an association called the Maona (the Arabic word for subsidy or reinforcement). Many of the noblest families of Genoa enrolled themselves in this corporation and settled in the island of Scio; and in order to express the community of interest that governed their proceedings, some of them relinquished their family names and assumed the general name of Giustiniani.[656] This extraordinary society played a part exactly comparable to that of the late East India Company. In Genoa it had its “Officium Chii”; it had its own constitution and mint, and it engaged in wars with the emperors of Constantinople, the Venetians and the Turks, who in turn attacked and ravaged the mastich island and adjacent possessions.
The Giustinianis regulated very strictly the culture of the lentisk and the gathering and export of its produce, and cruelly punished all offenders. The annual export of the drug was 300 to 400 quintals,[657] which were immediately assigned to the four regions with which the Maona chiefly traded. These were Romania (i.e. Greece, Constantinople and the Crimea), Occidente (Italy, France, Spain and Germany), Vera Turchia (Asia Minor), and Oriente (Syria, Egypt, and Northern Africa). In 1364, a quintal was sold for 40 lire; in 1417, the price was fixed at 25 lire. In the 16th century, the whole income from the drug was 30,000 ducats (£13,750),[658] a large sum for that period.
In 1566, the Giustinianis definitively lost their beautiful island, the Turks under Piali Pasha taking it by force of arms under pretext that the customary tribute was not duly paid.[659] A few years before that event, it was visited by the French naturalist Belon[660] who testifies from personal observation to the great care with which the lentisk was cultivated by the inhabitants.
When Tournefort[661] was at Scio in 1701, all the lentisk trees on the island were held to be the property of the Grand Signor, and if any land was sold, the sale did not include the lentisks that might be growing on it. At that time the mastich villages, about twenty in number, were required to pay 286 chests of mastich annually to the Turkish officers appointed to receive the revenue.
In the beginning of the present century, when Olivier[662] paid a visit to the island of Chios, he found 50,000 ocche (one occa = 2·82 lb. avdp. = 1·28 kilogrammes) or somewhat more to be the annual harvest of mastich.
The month of January, 1850, was memorable throughout Greece and the Archipelago for a frost of unparalleled severity which proved very destructive to the mastich trees of Scio, and occasioned a scarcity of the drug that lasted for many years.[663]