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2 The Candiotes and Their City MOST OF THIS CHAPTER concerns the feudatory group, partly because the various segments of Candia's population are not equally represented in the sources. Like aristocracies everywhere, they are easier to study than people of little or no property, whose lineage concerns had little impact on Candiote society. But the feudatories of Candia merit being placed at center stage for another reason. Without them, the colony of Crete would not have lasted aslong asit did, not, I stress, that its longevity foreshadowed an optimistic future for the subsequent history of European colonies. My point is instead that the reasons for the colony's survival are what made it a harbinger ofmodern colonization. Having said that, I do not view the humble, free residents of Candia as irrelevant to its special status as a state-sponsored colony in the late medieva !period. They constitute the essential complement to what I will have to say about the feudatories and the lowest levelsof the population. In many respects, the division of what follows falls into two sections, the first treating the feudatories and the second the artisans and professionals of Candiote society. This division reflects the differences in the kinds of sources and information pertaining to the two levels of the population, but it also reflects an actual boundary that ran between the two levels. In spite of Candia's small size, and despite the fact that relations between people of different social ranks had not yet reached the levels of compartmentalization they would in later centuries, the feudatories and the humble people of Candia in many ways inhabited different worlds. 58 Chapter Two "Flesh ofOUf Flesh, Bone ofOUf Bone": The Feudatory Families ofCandia In the previous chapter, the definition of"feudatory" was approached from a corporate perspective. This chapter covers the feudatories as families, heads of households, and prominent and influential members of the councils , before turning to the city's commoners. The loyalty of the Latin landholders , whose main responsibility was to defend Venice's possession ofthe island, was critical to the colony's survival. Maintaining the loyalty of second - and third-generation descendants of Venetians living in Candia and the other Cretan towns required extraordinary measures to keep their ancestry , and hence their allegiance, in the forefront oftheir lives. Just as the Venetian patriciate that emerged at the end ofthe thirteenth century is now understood to have consisted ofdivisions, if not factions, so, too, the feudatory group in Candia ought to be viewed.' Not only was the group being defined over the same course of time as that of the Venetian patriciate's emergence, the Great Council, too, shows signs of divisions. It remains to be determined how closely connected the evolution ofthe Venetian aristocracy was to the process taking place in Crete. A close look at the feudatory families may suggest points ofconnection. It used to be thought that the Latin conquerors of mainland Greece, the Aegean Islands, the crusader states, and the feudatories of Crete were decidedly urban." Although the greatest portion of their revenues came from the countryside, it is true that their primary residences were in the main cities of Crete: Candia, Chanea, Rethimno, and Sitia. The clause in the Concessio of 121 I that obliged colonists to maintain a residence in Candia shows that the choice was not entirely their own, but since many of them were from cosmopolitan Venice they were likely in the early years of the colony to have preferred the town to the country." Some even preferred Candia to other Cretan towns. The regime's decree that all those with cavallerie in the district of Chanea must take up residence there and not in Candia speaks to the attraction of the colony's busiest city." Nevertheless, the demands of their estates kept the feudatories outside the city for a portion ofthe year. The regime had repeatedly to insist in public proclamations that feudatories remain in the city until the work of the councils was completed, although whether they were escaping the chores of administration or eager to return to the work that awaited them in the countryside is impossible to say.5 The Candiotes and Their City 59 For reasons having to do as much with city congestion as with changing personal preferences, over the thirteenth century and the next some members of Candiote feudatory families established their principal, as opposed to official, place of residence beyond the city walls. Michaletto Maufredo 's will of1376...

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