Essays on the Latin Orient

by William Miller

7. CRETE UNDER THE VENETIANS (1204-1669)

Of all the Levantine possessions acquired by Venice as the result of the Fourth Crusade, by far the most important was the great island of Crete, which she obtained in August, 1204, from Boniface of Montferrat to whom it had been given 15 months earlier by Alexios IV, at the cost of 1000 marks of silver. At that time the population of the island, which in antiquity is supposed to have been a million, was probably about 500,000 or 600,000[183]. Lying on the way to Egypt and Syria, it was an excellent stopping-place for the Venetian merchantmen, and the immense sums of money expended upon its defence prove the value which the shrewd statesmen of the lagoons set upon it. Whether its retention was really worth the enormous loss of blood and treasure which it involved may perhaps be doubted, though in our own days the Concert of Europe has thought fit to spend about thrice the value of the island in the process of freeing it from the Turk. What distinguishes the mediæval history of Crete from that of the other Frank possessions in the Near East is the almost constant insubordination of the Cretan population. While in the Duchy of Athens we scarcely hear of any restlessness on the part of the Greeks, while in the Principality of Achaia they gave comparatively little trouble, while in the Archipelago they seldom murmured against their Dukes—in Crete, on the other hand, one insurrection followed another in rapid succession, and the first 160 years of Venetian rule are little else than a record of insurrections. The masters of the island explained this by the convenient theory, applied in our own time to the Irish, that the Cretans had a double dose of original sin, and the famous verse of Epimenides, to which the New Testament has given undying reputation, must have been often in the mouths of Venetian statesmen. But there were other and more natural reasons for the stubborn resistance of the islanders. After the reconquest of Crete by Nikephoros Phokas, the Byzantine Government had sent thither many members of distinguished military families, and their descendants, the archontes of the island at the time of the Venetian invasion, furnished the leaders for these perennial revolts[184]. Moreover, the topography of Crete is admirably suited for guerilla warfare; the combination of an insular with a highland spirit constitutes a double gage of independence, and what the Venetians regarded as a vice the modern Greeks reckon as a virtue.

Even before the Venetians had had time to take possession of the island, their great rivals, the Genoese, had established a colony there, so that it was clear from the outset that Venice was not the only Latin Power desirous of obtaining Crete. The first landing of the Venetians was effected at Spinalonga, where a small colony was founded. But, before the rest of the island could be annexed, a Genoese citizen, Enrico Pescatore, Count of Malta, one of the most daring seamen of his age, had set foot in Crete in 1206 at the instigation of Genoa, and invited the Cretans to join his standard. He easily made himself master of the island, over which he endeavoured to strengthen his hold by the restoration or construction of fourteen fortresses, still remaining, although in ruins. A larger force was then despatched from Venice, which drove out the Maltese adventurer, who appealed to the Pope as a faithful servant of the Church, and continued to trouble the conquerors for some years more[185]. In 1207 Tiepolo had been appointed the first Venetian Governor, or Duke, as he was styled, of Crete; but it was not till the armistice with Genoa in 1212 that the first comprehensive attempt at colonisation was made, and the organisation of a Cretan Government was undertaken. According to the feudal principles then in vogue, which a century earlier had been adopted for the colonisation of the Holy Land, the island was divided into 132 knights’ fiefs (a number subsequently raised to 200, and then to 230) and 48 sergeants’ or foot soldiers’ fiefs, and volunteers were invited to take them. The former class of lands was bestowed on Venetian nobles, the latter on ordinary citizens; but in both cases the fiefs became the permanent property of the holders, who could dispose of them by will or sale, provided that they bequeathed or sold them to Venetians. The nobles received houses in Candia, the Venetian capital (which now gave its name to the whole island), as well as pasture for their cattle, the State reserving to itself the direct ownership of the strip of coast in which Candia lay, the fort of Temenos and its precincts, and any gold or silver mines that might hereafter be discovered. The division of the island into six parts, or sestieri, was modelled, like the whole scheme of administration, on the arrangements of the city of Venice, where the sestieri still survive. So close was the analogy between the colonial and the metropolitan divisions that the colonists of each sestiere in Crete sprang from the same sestiere at Venice—a system which stimulated local feeling. At the head of each sestiere an official known as a capitano was placed, while the government of the colony was carried on by a greater and a lesser Council of the colonists, by two Councillors representing the Doge, and by the Duke, who usually held office for two years. The first batch of colonists was composed of twenty-six citizens and ninety-four nobles of the Republic, the latter drawn from some of the best Venetian families. But it is curious that, while we still find descendants of Venetian houses in the Cyclades and at Corfù, scarcely a trace of them remains in Crete[186]. As for ecclesiastical matters, always of such paramount importance in the Levant, the existing system was adopted by the newcomers. Candia remained an archbishopric, under which the ten bishoprics of the island were placed; but the churches, with two temporary exceptions, were occupied by the Latin clergy, and that body was required, no less than the laity, to contribute its quota of taxation towards the defence of the capital[187]. Although we hear once or twice of a Greek bishop in Crete, the usual practice was to allow no orthodox ecclesiastic above the rank of a protopapâs to reside at Candia, while Greek priests had to seek consecration from the bishops of the nearest Venetian colonies. But, as the Venetian colonists in course of time became Hellenised and embraced the Orthodox faith, the original organisation of the Latin church was found to be too large, so that, at the time of the Turkish conquest, the Latin Archbishop of Candia with his four suffragans represented Roman Catholicism in the island, and outside the four principal towns there was scarcely a Catholic to be found.

The division of the island into fiefs naturally caused much bad blood among the natives, who objected to this appropriation of their lands. In 1212, the same year which witnessed the arrival of the colonists, an insurrection broke out under the leadership of the powerful family of the Hagiostephanitai. The rising soon assumed such serious proportions that Tiepolo called in the aid of Duke Marco I of Naxos, whose duplicity in this connection was narrated in a previous essay. In addition to these internal troubles, the Genoese and Alamanno Costa, Count of Syracuse, an old comrade of the Count of Malta again became active; but the Venetians wisely purchased the acquiescence of the Genoese in the existing state of things by valuable concessions, the chief of which was the recognition of Genoa’s former privileges of trade with the Empire of Romania, and imprisoned Costa in an iron cage. From that moment, save for two brief raids in 1266 and 1293, Genoa abandoned the idea of contesting her rival’s possession of Crete. In the same year, however, only five years after the first rising, a fresh Cretan insurrection, due to the high-handed action of the Venetian officials, caused the proud Republic of St Mark to admit the necessity of conceding something to the islanders. The ringleaders received a number of knights’ fiefs, and became Venetian vassals. But a further distribution of lands in the parts of the island hitherto unconfiscated kindled a new revolt. The rebels, seeing the growth of the Empire of Nice, offered their country to the Emperor Vatatzes if he would come and deliver them, while the Duke summoned the reigning sovereign of Naxos to his aid. The latter withdrew on the approach of the Nicene admiral, who managed to land a contingent in the island. Long after the admiral’s departure these men held their own in the mountains, and it was eight years before the Venetians succeeded in suppressing the rising. On the death of Vatatzes, the Cretans seemed to have lost hope of external assistance, and no further attempt was made to throw off the Venetian yoke till after the fall of the Latin Empire of Romania. Meanwhile, in 1252, a fresh scheme of colonisation was carried out; ninety more knights’ fiefs were granted in the west of the island, and the town of Canea, the present capital, was founded, on or near the site of the ancient Cydonia[188]; one half of the new city was reserved to Venice, and the other half became the property of the colonists.

After the recapture of Constantinople by the Greeks, the value of the island became greater than ever to the Venetians. Three years after that event we find the Doge Zeno writing to Pope Urban IV that “the whole strength of the Empire” lay in Crete, while at the same time the revival of the Greek cause, both on the Bosporos and in the Morea, led to an attack upon it by the Byzantine forces. But Venice had less difficulty in coming to terms with the Emperor than in managing her unruly subjects. In 1268 the Venetian colonists rose under leaders who bore the honoured names of Venier and Gradenigo, demanding complete separation from the mother country. The harsh policy of the Republic towards her colonies was an excuse for this outbreak; but no further attempt of the kind was made for another hundred years, when the descendants of the Venier and the Gradenigo of 1268 headed a far more serious rebellion. Another Greek rising now followed, this time organised by the brothers Chortatzai, but the Venetians had now succeeded in winning over a party among the Cretans, including Alexios Kallerges, the richest of all the archontes. This man used all his local influence on the side of the Government; yet even so the rebellion continued for several years, and at times threatened to gain the upper hand. One Venetian Governor was lured into the mountains, surprised, and slain; another was driven behind the walls of Candia, and only saved from capture by the fidelity of the Greek inhabitants of that district. At last adequate reinforcements arrived, the Chortatzai were banished from the island, and the castle of Selino was erected to overawe the rebels in their part of the country. Peace then reigned for a few years, and the conciliatory policy of the next Governor earned for him the title of “the good” Duke from the Cretan subjects of the Republic.

But the calm was soon disturbed by a fresh outbreak. In 1283 the same Alexios Kallerges who had been so valuable an auxiliary of Venice in the last rising inaugurated a rebellion which, arising out of the curtailment of his own family privileges, spread to the whole island and lasted for sixteen years. The home Government made the mistake of under-estimating the importance of this movement, which it neglected to suppress at the outset by the despatch of large bodies of men. As usual, the insurgents operated in the mountains, whence the Venetians were unable to dislodge them, while the Genoese laid Canea in ashes in 1293, and tried to establish relations with the insurrectionary chief. But Kallerges was not disposed to exchange the rule of one Italian State for that of another, and, as he saw at last that he could not shake off the Venetian yoke single-handed, he came to terms with the Governor. His patriotic refusal of the Genoese offers had excited the admiration of the Venetians, who were ready to make concessions to one whom Genoa could not seduce. He was allowed to keep the fiefs which the Angeloi had granted in the Byzantine days to his family, he was created a knight, and his heirs received permission to intermarry with Venetians—a practice absolutely prohibited as a rule in Venetian colonies. It is pleasant to be able to record that both parties to this treaty kept their word. Kallerges on his death-bed bade his four sons remain true to Venice; one of his grandsons fought in her cause, and his descendants were rewarded with the title of patricians—at that time a rare distinction. These frequent insurrections, combined with the horrors of plague and famine, do not seem to have permanently injured the resources of the island, nor were the ravages of corsairs, fitted out by the Catalans of Attica in the early part of the fourteenth century, felt much beyond the coast. At any rate, in 1320 such was the prosperity of the colony that the Governor was able to remit a large surplus to Venice after defraying the costs of administration. But the harsh policy of the Republic gradually alienated the colonists as well as the natives. A demand for ship-money caused a fresh rebellion of the Greeks in 1333, in which one of the Kallergai fought for, and another of them against, the Venetian Government. Eight years later a member of that famous Cretan family, forgetting the patriotic conduct of his great ancestor, entered into negotiations with the Turks; but he was invited to a parley by the Venetian Governor, who had him arrested as a traitor and thrown in a sack into the sea. This act of cruelty and treachery had the effect of embittering and prolonging the Cretan resistance, so that the Venetians soon held nothing in the island except the capital and a few castles. At last the arrival of overwhelming reinforcements forced the rebel leader, Michael Psaromelingos, to bid his servant kill him, and the rebellion was over. The death of this chieftain has formed the subject of a modern Greek drama, for the Greeks of the mainland have always admired, and sometimes imitated, the desperate valour of their Cretan brethren. On the Venetians this revolt made so great an impression that the Duke was ordered to admit no Cretan into the Great Council of the island without the special permission of the Doge—an order due as much to the fears of the home Government as to the jealousy of the colonists.

But the most significant feature of this insurrection was the apathy of the Venetian vassals in contributing their quota of horses and men for the defence of the island. Somewhat earlier, the knights had been compelled, in spite of their vigorous protests, to pay the sum which, by the terms of their feudal tenure, they were supposed to expend upon their armed followers, direct to the Exchequer, which took care to see that the money was properly applied. Many of the poorer among them now found themselves unable to provide the amounts which the Government required, and so became heavily indebted to the Treasury. It was the opinion of Venetian statesmen that Crete should be self-supporting, but it at last became necessary to grant a little grace to the impoverished debtors, some of whom had shown signs of coquetting with the Turks. Thus the discontented Venetian colonists, who had been born and trained for the most part in an island which exercises a strong attraction on even foreign residents, found that they had more grievances in common with the Greeks than bonds of union with the city of their ancestors. More than a century and a half had elapsed since the first great batch of colonists had left the lagoons for the great Greek island. Redress had been stubbornly refused, and it only needed a spark to set the whole colony ablaze.

In 1362 a new Duke, Leonardo Dandolo, arrived at Candia with orders from the Venetian Senate to demand from the knights a contribution towards the repair of the harbour there. The knights contended that, as the harbour would benefit trade, which was the interest of the Republic, while their income was exclusively derived from agriculture, the expense should be borne by the home Government. As the Senate persisted, the whole body of knights rose under the command of two young members of the order, Tito Venier, Lord of Cerigo—the island which afterwards formed part of the Septinsular Republic—and Tito Gradenigo, entered the Duke’s palace, and put him and his Councillors in irons. Having arrested all the Venetian merchants whom they could find, the rebels then proclaimed the independence of Crete—how often since then has it not been announced!—appointed Marco Gradenigo, Tito’s uncle, Duke, and elected four Councillors from their own ranks. In order to obtain the support of the Greeks they declared that the Roman Catholic ritual had ceased to exist throughout the island, and announced their own acceptance of the Orthodox faith. In token of the new order of things the Venetian insignia were torn down from all the public buildings, and St Mark made way for Titus, the patron saint and first bishop of Crete[189]. The theological argument was more than the Greeks could resist, and the descendants of Catholic Venetians and Orthodox archontes made common cause against Popery and the tax-collector.

When the news reached Venice, it excited the utmost consternation. But, as no sufficient forces were available, the Republic resolved to try what persuasion could effect. A trusty Greek from the Venetian colony of Modon was sent to treat with the Greeks, while five commissioners proceeded to negotiate with the revolutionary Government at Candia. The commissioners were courteously heard; but when it was found that they were empowered to offer nothing but an amnesty, and that only on condition of prompt submission to the Republic, they were plainly told that the liberty recently won by arms should never be sacrificed to the commands of the Venetian Senate. Nothing remained but to draw the sword, and the home Government had prudently availed itself of the negotiations to begin its preparations, both diplomatic and naval. All the Powers friendly to Venice, the Pope, the Emperor Charles IV, the King of France, and the Queen of Naples, even Genoa herself, forbade their subjects to trade with the island, and the Pope, alarmed at the apostasy of the colonists, addressed a pastoral to the recalcitrant Cretans. But neither papal arguments nor an international boycott could bend the stubborn minds of the insurgents. It was not till the arrival of the Venetian fleet and army, the latter under the command of Luchino dal Verme, the friend of Petrarch, who had warned him, with the inevitable allusions to the classic poets and to St Paul, of the “untruthfulness,” “craft,” and “deceit” of the Cretans, that the movement was crushed.

The armament was of considerable size. Italy had been ransacked for soldiers, the Duchy of the Archipelago and Eubœa for ships, and Nicolò “Spezzabanda,” the regent of Naxos, hastened to assist his Venetian patrons. Candia speedily fell, and then the commissioners who accompanied the military and naval forces proceeded to mete out punishment to the chief insurgents without mercy. Marco Gradenigo and two others were beheaded on the platform of the castle, where their corpses were ordered to remain, under penalty of the loss of a hand to any one who tried to remove them. The same bloody and brief assizes were held in Canea and Rethymno; the most guilty were executed, the less conspicuous were banished. Tito Venier was captured by Venetian ships on the high sea, and paid for his treasonable acts with his head; his accomplice, Tito Gradenigo, managed to escape to Rhodes, but died in exile. The property of the conspirators was confiscated by the State.