Founding
rule of Crete by the Republic of Venice (1212-1669)
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The Realm or Kingdom of Candia or Duchy of Candia was the official name of Crete during the island's period as an overseas territory of the Republic of Venice, from the initial Venetian conquest in 1205–1212 to its fall to the Ottoman Empire during the Cretan War (1645–1669). The island was at the time and up to the early modern era commonly known as Candia after its capital, Candia or Chandax (modern Heraklion). In modern Greek historiography, the period is known as the Venetocracy (Greek: Βενετοκρατία, romanized: Venetokratía, or Ενετοκρατία, Enetokratía).
The island of Crete had formed part of the Byzantine Empire until 1204, when the Fourth Crusade dissolved the empire and divided its territories amongst the crusader leaders (see Frankokratia). Crete was initially allotted to Boniface of Montferrat, but, unable to enforce his control over the island, he soon sold his rights to Venice. Venetian troops first occupied the island in 1205, but it took until 1212 for it to be secured, especially against the opposition of Venice's rival Genoa. Thereafter, the new colony took shape: the island was divided into six provinces (sestieri) named after the divisions of the city of Venice itself, while the capital Candia was directly subjected to the Commune Veneciarum. The islands of Tinos and Cythera, also under Venetian control, came under the kingdom's purview. In the early 14th century, this division was replaced by four provinces, almost identical to the four modern prefectures.
During the first two centuries of Venetian rule, revolts by the native Orthodox Greek population against the Roman Catholic Venetians were frequent, often supported by the Empire of Nicaea. Fourteen revolts are counted between 1207 and the last major uprising, the Revolt of St. Titus in the 1360s, which united the Greeks and the Venetian coloni against the financial exactions of the metropolis. Thereafter, and despite occasional revolts and Turkish raids, the island largely prospered, and Venetian rule opened up a window into the ongoing Italian Renaissance. As a consequence, an artistic and literary revival unparalleled elsewhere in the Greek world took place: the Cretan School of painting, which culminated in the works of El Greco, united Italian and Byzantine forms, and a widespread literature using the local idiom emerged, culminating with the early 17th-century romances Erotokritos and Erophile.
After the Ottoman conquest of Cyprus in 1571, Crete was Venice's last major overseas possession. The Republic's relative military weakness, coupled with the island's wealth and its strategic location controlling the waterways of the Eastern Mediterranean attracted the attention of the Ottoman Empire. In the long and devastating Cretan War (1645–1669), the two states fought over the possession of Crete: the Ottomans quickly overran most of the island, but failed to take Candia, which held out, aided by Venetian naval superiority and Ottoman distractions elsewhere, until 1669. Only the three island fortresses of Souda, Gramvousa and Spinalonga remained in Venetian hands. Attempts to recover Candia during the Morean War failed, and these last Venetian outposts were finally taken by the Turks in 1715, during the last Ottoman–Venetian War.
Venice had a long history of trade contact with Crete; the island was one of the numerous cities and islands throughout Greece where the Venetians had enjoyed tax-exempted trade by virtue of repeated chrysobulls granted by the Byzantine emperors, beginning in 1147 (and in turn codifying a practice dating to c. 1130) and confirmed as late as 1198 in a treaty with Emperor Alexios III Angelos. These same locations were largely allocated to the Republic of Venice in the partition of the Byzantine Empire that followed the capture of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade, in April 1204: in addition to the Ionian Islands, the Saronic Gulf islands and the Cyclades, she obtained several coastal outposts on the Greek mainland of interest as bases for her maritime commerce. Finally, on 12 August 1204, the Venetians preempted their traditional rivals, the Genoese, to acquire Crete from Boniface of Montferrat. Boniface had allegedly been promised the island by the Byzantine emperor Alexios IV Angelos, but as he had little use for it, he sold it in exchange for 1,000 silver marks, an annual portion of the island's revenues totalling 10,000 hyperpyra, and the promise of Venetian support for his acquisition of the Kingdom of Thessalonica.
To enforce their claim, the Venetians landed a small force on the offshore island of Spinalonga. The Genoese however, who already had a trading colony on Crete, moved more quickly: under the command of Enrico Pescatore, Count of Malta, and enjoying the support of the local populace, they soon became masters over the eastern and central portions of the island. A first Venetian attack in summer 1207 under Ranieri Dandolo and Ruggiero Premarino was driven off, and for the next two years, Pescatore ruled the entire island with the exception of a few isolated Venetian garrisons. Pescatore even appealed to the Pope, and attempted to have himself confirmed as the island's king. However, while Venice was determined to capture the island, Pescatore was largely left unsupported by Genoa. In 1209, the Venetians managed to capture Palaiokastro near Candia (Greek Chandax, Χάνδαξ; modern Heraklion, Ηράκλειον), but it took them until 1212 to evict Pescatore from the island, and the latter's lieutenant, Alamanno da Costa, held out even longer. Only on 11 May 1217 did the war with Genoa end in a treaty that left Crete securely in Venetian hands.
Giacomo Tiepolo became the first governor of the new province, with the title of "duke of Crete" (duca di Candia), based in Candia. To strengthen Venetian control over Crete, Tiepolo suggested the dispatch of colonists from the metropolis; the Venetian colonists would receive land, and in exchange provide military service. The suggestion was approved, and the relevant charter, the Carta Concessionis, proclaimed on 10 September 1211 at Venice. 132 nobles, who were to serve as knights (milites or cavaleri) and 45 burghers (pedites, sergentes) participated in the first colonization wave that left Venice on 20 March 1212.
Three more waves of colonists were sent, in 1222, 1233, and 1252, and immigration continued in a more irregular fashion in later years as well. In total, about 10,000 Venetians are estimated to have moved to Crete during the first century of Venetian rule—by comparison, Venice itself had a population of c. 60,000 at this period. The colonization wave of 1252 also resulted in the establishment of Canea (modern Chania), on the site of the long abandoned ancient city of Kydonia. Venetians used Crete as a center for their profitable eastern trade. Candia was an important base for the traffic of the Balkan slave trade, during which the Venetians transported slaves from the Balkans across the Adriatic Sea to Chios or Candia in the Aegean Sea, from which they were sold on to either slavery in Spain in the West or slavery in Egypt in the South.
Furthermore, they established a feudal state and administered a strict capitalist system for exploiting the island's agricultural produce. Exported products consisted primarily of wheat and sweet wine (malmsey), and to a lesser extent of timber and cheese.
Venetian rule over Crete proved troubled from the beginning, as it encountered the hostility of the local populace. In the words of the medievalist Kenneth Setton, it required "an unceasing vigilance and a large investment in men and money to hold on to the island". No fewer than 27 large and small uprisings or conspiracies are documented during Venetian rule. Although the local Greeks, both the noble families and the wider populace, were allowed to keep their own law and property, they resented Latin rule and the strict discrimination between them and the Latin Venetian elite, which monopolized the higher administrative and military posts of the island and reaped most of the benefits of the commerce passing through it. During the early period of Venetian rule, the Venetian colonists consciously maintained themselves apart; until the end of the 13th century, even mixed marriages between native Cretans and Venetians were prohibited.
Already in 1212, the Hagiostephanites brothers rose in revolt in the Lasithi Plateau, possibly caused by the arrival of the first Venetian colonists, and the expropriation of the Cretan nobles and the Orthodox Church on the island. The rebellion soon spread throughout the eastern part of Crete, capturing the forts of Sitia and Spinalonga, and was only suppressed through the intervention of Marco I Sanudo, the Duke of Naxos. Sanudo and Tiepolo then fell out, and Sanudo attempted to conquer the island for himself. Sanudo enjoyed considerable local support, including the powerful archon Sebastos Skordyles. He even seized Candia, while Tiepolo escaped to the nearby fortress of Temenos disguised as a woman. The arrival of a Venetian fleet allowed Tiepolo to recover the capital, and Sanudo agreed to evacuate the island in exchange for money and provisions; twenty Greek lords who had collaborated with him accompanied him to Naxos.
The failure of this first revolt did not reduce Cretan restiveness, however. In 1217, the theft of some horses and pasture land belonging to the Skordyles family by the Venetian rector of Monopari (Venetian Bonrepare), and the failure of the Duke of Crete, Paolo Querini, to provide redress, resulted in the outbreak of a major rebellion, led by the Greek nobles Constantine Skordyles and Michael Melissenos. Based in the two mountainous provinces of Upper Syvritos and Lower Syvritos, the rebels inflicted successive defeats on the Venetian troops, and the uprising soon spread across the entire western part of the island. As force proved unable to quell the rebellion, the Venetians resorted to negotiations. On 13 September 1219, the Duke of Crete, Domenico Delfino, and the rebel leaders concluded a treaty that gave the latter knightly fiefs and various privileges. 75 serfs were set free, the privileges of the metochi of the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian on Patmos were confirmed, and Venetian citizens became liable for punishment for crimes against the Cretan commoners (villani). In exchange, the Cretan nobles swore allegiance to the Republic of Venice. This treaty had major repercussions, as it began the formation of a native Cretan noble class, set on equal footing with the Venetian colonial aristocracy. However, the arrival of the second wave of Venetian colonists in 1222 again led to uprisings, under Theodore and Michael Melissenos. Once again, the Venetian authorities concluded a treaty with the rebel leaders, conceding them two knightly fiefs.
A new rebellion broke out in 1228, involving not only the Skordyloi and Melissenoi, but also the Arkoleos and Drakontopoulos families. Both sides requested external aid: the Duke of Crete, Giovanni Storlando, asked for the help of Angelo Sanudo, son and successor of Marco, while the Cretans looked to the Greek Empire of Nicaea for aid. A Nicaean fleet of 33 ships arrived on the island, and in the 1230s the Nicaeans were able to challenge Venetian control over much of Crete and maintain troops there. A series of treaties in 1233, 1234, and 1236, ended the uprising, with the concession of new privileges to the local nobility. Only the Drakontopouloi, along with the remnants of the Nicaean troops (the so-called "Anatolikoi") continued the fight, based on the fortress of Mirabello (modern Agios Nikolaos). It was only with the aid of the autonomous Greek lord of Rhodes, Leo Gabalas, that the Venetians were able to force their withdrawal to Asia Minor in 1236. The fate of the Drakontopouloi is unknown, and they are no longer attested thereafter.
Following the reconquest of Constantinople in 1261, and the restoration of the Byzantine Empire under the Palaiologos dynasty, Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos endeavoured to recover Crete as well. A certain Sergios was sent to the island, and made contact with the Greek nobles Georgios Chortatzes and Michael Skordiles Psaromelingos. This led to the outbreak of another uprising in 1262, again led by the Skordilides, the Melissenoi, and the Chortatzes family, and supported by the Orthodox clergy. The rebellion raged for four years, but its prospects were never good; not only was Michael VIII unable to send any substantial aid, but the influential Greek noble Alexios Kallergis refused to support it, fearing the loss of his privileges. Finally, in 1265 another treaty ended the uprising, reconfirming the privileges of the Cretan nobles, awarding two more knightly fiefs to their leaders, and allowing the safe departure of Sergios from Crete. On the very next year, however, rumours spread that the Cretan nobles, including the Chortatzes brothers George and Theodore, but also Alexios Kallergis, were plotting another uprising. The dynamic intervention of the Duke Giovanni Velenio, and Kallergis' own misgivings, led to the failure of these plans. Michael VIII eventually recognised Venetian control of the island in treaties concluded in 1268 and 1277.
In 1272 or 1273, however, George and Theodore Chortatzes launched another uprising in eastern Crete, centred on the Lasithi Plateau. In 1276, the rebels scored a major victory in an open battle in the Messara Plain, in which the Duke of Crete, a ducal councillor, and the "flower of the Venetian colony of Candia" fell. The rebels laid siege to Candia, but on the verge of success, the rebellion began to fall apart due to dissensions among the Cretan nobles: the Psaromelingoi fell out with the Chortatzes clan after one of their own killed a Chortatzes over the division of the spoils, while at the same time Alexios Kallergis openly collaborated with the Venetians. With the arrival of substantial reinforcements from Venice, the uprising was finally defeated in 1278. Unlike with previous rebellions, the Venetians refused a negotiated settlement, and suppressed the revolt with a campaign of terror involving mass reprisals. The Chortatzes family and many of their supporters fled to Asia Minor, where several entered Byzantine service, but the brutal repression of the Venetians created an unbridgeable gulf with the local population.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Kingdom of Candia”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.