Family-holdings in Santa Maura.
Professor Ansted, in his book on the Ionian Islands in the year 1863, thus describes the management of an estate on the Island of Santa Maura:—[199]
“According to Ionian law, all the members of a family share equally in the family property after the death of the father; but it does not follow as a matter of course that the property is divided. It is much more usual that the brothers and sisters, if young, continue to live together till they either marry or undertake some employment or business at a distance. If a sister marries, she is dowered with a sum equivalent to her share. If a brother however earns a separate income, from whatever source, whether he be married or remain single, and whether he live in the same or a different house, or even remove to another town or island, he pays in all his income to a joint fund, the foundation of which is the income obtained from the paternal estate. Those who do nothing else manage the estate. One brother, perhaps, remains in the village as cultivator, another lives in the town acting as factor, or merchant to the estate, receiving and selling the produce and managing the proceeds, whatever the case may be; and in addition selling, exporting, and otherwise conducting a general business in the same department. A third may perhaps receive and sell the goods in a foreign country. A fourth may be a member of the legislature, and a fifth a judge. Some marry and have families, others remain single: but the incomes of all are united, each draws out a reasonable share, according to his needs, and a very close account is kept of all transactions. If one brother dies, his children come into the partnership; and as time goes on, these again will grow up and marry, the daughters receiving a proportional and often large dower out of the joint fund, entirely without reference to the special property of their parents. This may go on indefinitely: but as family quarrels will arise, there are always means of terminating the arrangement, and closing accounts, either entirely as regards all, or partially as with reference to a mauvais sujet, or troublesome member of the partnership.... This curious patriarchal system, though obtaining more perfectly and frequently in Santa Maura than in the other islands, exists in Cephalonia and is said to be not quite unknown in Zante, where the state of society approximates far more to that common in the western countries of Europe. Santa Maura, being the most isolated of all the islands and that which retains all ancient customs most [pg 087] tenaciously, is naturally that in which this sort of communism can exist with smallest risk of interference.”
According to the Consular Reports, the relations between landlord and tenant are governed more by local usage than by law, and the landlord generally takes on an average about 15 per cent. of the produce in kind on the threshing-floor, as rent, in cases where he does not supply more than the bare use of the land.[200]
The open field system in Greece,
There is little manuring; the light plough barely turns the surface of the land. Land is usually allowed to lie fallow every other year, sometimes two years out of three. Sheep and goats are the chief stock; they of course graze in summer on the mountains; villages sometimes own forests and waste lands in common.
and in the islands.
In the islands of the Archipelago,[201] the holdings are frequently divided into separate plots consisting of a quarter or half acre apiece or even less, intersected by those belonging to other parties. Cattle are pastured on the fallow, roadsides, &c., near the village.
In Cephalonia,[202] holdings consist of from five to twenty-five acres, seldom in a continuous piece, but “cut up into patches and intersected by other properties.”
In Corfu,[203] the holdings are similar—infinitesimally small and intermixed pieces of land, especially in the olive groves, where however there are no divisions on the land and the “oldest inhabitant” has to be asked for evidence of ownership in disputed cases.