May 19, 2022 • 33 mins
The Venetians kept losing territory to the Ottomans, until they joined a Holy League and took the Morea. They also blew up the Parthenon, but nobody's perfect.
Show Notes: available at the episode page on the Helonaki website
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jen (00:01):
The territory of Vostizza was subdivided into 34 areas
containing one or morelocalities.
There was a town of Vostizzaitself.
30 inhabited villages and twouninhabited villages.
There were also 11 localitiesname as a zeogolatio, two of
(00:21):
which were uninhabited.
And there were five monasteriesin the territory.
Listed for each area was thenumber of buildings of various
types, and the condition of thebuildings.
Whether they were intact or indisrepair.
Numbers of fruit trees, such asolive, lemon and mulberry among
(00:42):
many others and the numbers ofanimals, including oxen, sheep,
goats, and interestinglybeehives were also included.
The number of families in eachvillage or area.
And whether they were local tothe area or had immigrated.
Sometimes also, including wherethey had immigrated from were
(01:07):
also among the listings.
In addition, each parcel of landwas mapped.
And recorded with the name ofthe owner.
And the area of each parcelwritten down in three
measurement systems.
Four measurement systems, if theparcel was a vineyard.
(01:28):
This is information listed inthe detailed cadaster of the
villages and areas in theterritory of Vostizza created by
the order of Francesco GrimaniThe Proveditor General collected
by Francesco Vandeyk, IngeniorPublico in the year 1700.
(01:49):
Published in a 1993 book byDokos and Panagopoulos.
I'm Jen Glaubius and this is theHelonaki Deep Dive.
A podcast about mapping andanalysis for historical and
archeological research.
In this episode, I'll discussthe continuing story of Ottoman
Venetian relations.
Culminating in the second periodof Venetian rule in the Morea.
(02:14):
Let's dive in.
We're going to start where weleft off in the last episode,
just after the battle of Lepantoin 1571.
Remember that battle was acrushing defeat for the
Ottomans, but afterwards theywere able to quickly rebuild
their fleets.
(02:35):
And the Holy League who are onthe other side of the battle,
did not press their advantage.
And soon that leaguedisintegrated.
Venice in a few years, soughtpeace with the Ottomans.
And remember all of this hadstarted when the Ottomans
decided to take over the islandof Cyprus from the Venetians.
(02:56):
In this peace between theOttomans and Venice, the
Venetians had to accept the lossof Cyprus.
And they had to pay a large sumof money, to the Ottomans.
Things did not really go wellfor the Venetians, despite being
on the winning side of theBattle of Lepanto.
(03:17):
But despite coming out ahead bygetting Cyprus.
The Ottoman empire went throughsome problems in the last
quarter of the 16th century.
Earlier, the Ottoman economy hadbeen fueled by expansion of the
territory of the empire byadding more and more area to the
(03:37):
empire.
But there was much lessexpansion and of much smaller
areas from here on out.
There was also a financialcrisis in the last bit of the
16th century.
That was linked to colonialexploitation in the Western
hemisphere.
(03:58):
And this financial crisis wasexacerbated by changes in
warfare.
That in turn affectedlandholding across the Ottoman
empire.
So let's break this down.
To start with.
Silver that Spain looted frommodern day, Bolivia and Mexico
flooded into Europe.
(04:19):
And this lowered the value ofsilver all over Europe,
including in the Ottoman empire.
Over the winter of 1585/ 1586.
The Ottoman government debasedtheir silver coin.
And that caused instabilitysince the debasement made prices
(04:40):
of food and other goodsinflated.
So they suffered underinflation.
This also meant that less realmoney was flowing into the
Ottoman treasury.
And so to make up for theshortfalls.
The government put new taxes onpeasants, which of course made
the peasants very angry.
(05:01):
Nobody likes having their taxesraised.
The Ottomans also extended thesystem of tax farming.
We talked about this, a fewepisodes back talking about tax
farming and the Byzantineempire.
But just as a reminder, Taxfarming is that the government
would take bids for individualsor groups to collect taxes.
(05:24):
The tax farmer would pay thebid, which was the amount of
taxes that the government washoping to get.
And then that tax farmer wouldgo and extract as much money as
they could from the people inthe area.
They were Trying to collect asmuch money as they could to
profit on top of the amount thatthey had bid.
So obviously this system wasrife with corruption.
(05:47):
You could bribe an official toget your bid put in.
You would try to extract as muchmoney from people as possible.
It's just a really horriblesystem.
So, of course this also madepeople angry.
Changes in the Ottoman militaryalso led to immediate and then
later on long-term disruptionsin the Ottoman empire.
(06:09):
In the late 16th century, thenature of warfare had changed.
And so now most warfare happenedas sieges of forts or towns
rather than cavalry charges.
Now.
The Ottoman military had beenbased on the cavalry.
And that was reflected in theland revenue system.
(06:31):
Where tax revenue was allottedto cavalrymen to pay for their
upkeep so that they would beable to support themselves and
go out on military campaigns.
Once the cavalry was less usefulin these siege situations, what
you really wanted was infantryand you wanted them to have
(06:52):
muskets.
And for the Ottomans, thosemusket bearing infantry were the
Janissaries.
Now, this is a very touchytopic.
The first Janissaries wereChristian prisoners of war from
the Balkans early on in theempire.
But then the Ottomans decided todraw youths from Christian
(07:17):
villages in the Balkans.
So.
Ottoman officials would go toChristian villages and select a
certain number of youths,probably teens to be trained as
soldiers, as administrators, orto serve the Sultan.
And so they were taken fromtheir families.
They would have to convert toIslam.
(07:39):
And.
Of course, this is horrifictaking kids from their families
and forcing them to convert intoanother religion is very, very
awful.
This practice, which went out ofuse later on.
Would definitely be a chargeagainst the Ottomans.
But for now here in the late16th century, the Janissaries
(08:04):
were very important to theOttoman military But it's
important to note.
That the Janissaries were paid asalary rather than being given
revenue from the land.
Now the Ottomans also tried toenlist peasant Muslim men to
serve.
So they'd say, okay, you enlistfor a short time, you'll serve
(08:26):
for one campaign and then returnhome.
This backfired on the Ottomans.
However, because once theirenlistment was done, these
peasant men would end up keepingtheir guns.
And now that they had a littlebit of military training.
They would go back.
To Anatolia where most of themwere from.
(08:48):
But instead of going backpeacefully to farming, They
would become brigands.
And.
They were dangerous because theywere unhappy about the high
taxes that they were paying.
And they had guns and a bit ofmilitary training.
So, the Ottomans stopped tryingto enlist the peasant Muslim men
(09:11):
and instead increased the numberof Janissaries.
And you see this in the numbers.
Janissaries increased in numberfrom 8,000 in 1527.
To almost 40,000 in 1609.
So huge increase within acentury.
But when you have moreJanissaries who are paid a
(09:35):
salary.
That's more money that had tocome out of the Ottoman
treasury.
And so the treasury became moreand more strained.
Of course the Janissaries wouldbecome unhappy if they were not
paid and with their militarytraining and the guns that they
had.
They would sometimes revolt.
This happened in May of 1622when the Sultan Osman, the
(09:58):
second.
Was actually killed byJanissaries during this revolt.
Most of the time, the revoltsdid not reach that level, but
these revolts would happenperiodically continuing forward
in the history of the Ottomanempire.
So you can see that the Ottomansystem had radically changed by
1632 when there were reforms ontax collection and landholding.
(10:22):
Timars, those grants of landrevenue that were given to
cavalrymen.
Were supposed to be granted formilitary service, but through
time that had changed and theyhad then been passed down from
father to son.
So there were the reforms in1632 to try to end that
hereditary inheritance of landrevenue.
(10:45):
And they also tried to make itthat Janissaries could be given
timars.
But the Janissaries reallypreferred to have their
salaries.
And nothing really changed withthe land revenue.
It continued to be inherited.
After the battle of Lepanto in1571.
(11:06):
The Venetians had tried to stayat peace with the Ottomans.
Because they had big, bigproblems going on in Italy.
So there were a few minorincidents between the Venetians
and Ottomans, but nothing biguntil the 1640s.
At this point, the Venetiansstill controlled the island of
Crete.
In 1644, an Ottoman galley wasbound for Mecca.
(11:30):
But it was attacked and capturedby the Knights of Malta.
This captured ship was taken toCrete.
And this is where we end up ina, he said, she said situation.
So the Venetians, when asked toexplain what happened to the
Sultan said that, okay, the shiptried to stop a few places,
docked very briefly, but theywere ordered to leave by the
(11:53):
Venetian governor.
They definitely did not doanything on the island of Crete,
which the Venetians held.
The other side of the story wasfrom Ottoman sailors who had
survived and made their way tothe Sultan.
And these sailors said, okay,this captured ship went to
Crete, and that's where thestories agreed.
(12:15):
But they said, instead of beingturned away immediately, this
ship was on Crete for at least20 days.
And that a bunch of goods andpeople on that ship who had been
enslaved were sold off on theisland.
I don't know which story istrue, and that doesn't really
matter.
Because what really matters isthat the Sultan believed the
(12:38):
Ottoman sailors and decided toattack Venetian held Crete.
The Venetians had had create asa colony, since 1211 after the
fourth crusade.
The Venetians called the islandCandia after the name of the
capital city, which is modernday Iraklio.
The Venetian government of Cretewas supposed to be like the
(13:00):
government of the VenetianRepublic itself.
Where they had a governor whowould be called a doge and a
great council.
But instead of being electedlocally, the governor had a two
year term and was appointed byVenice.
And really all of the decisionswere made in Venice.
(13:20):
To make things even worse, thebest land on the island had been
snapped up by prominent Venetianfamilies.
And so they owned these largeestates in the area with the
best land on the island.
And so over the centuries thatthe Venetians had held Crete,
there were many uprisings bylocal people.
(13:41):
Since They had no autonomy andthey were not especially happy
with the Venetians.
So the Ottoman Sultan haddecided to attack Crete and at
the end of April 1645.
An Ottoman fleet of 400 shipspassed through the Dardanelles
into the Aegean Sea.
(14:03):
This fleet sailed past Crete.
So it did not directly go toCrete, but instead went to the
southwestern Morea and docked atNavarino.
Where they gathered supplies andreinforcements.
The fleet then left Navarino inlate June and landed west of the
city of Chania in thenorthwestern part of Crete a few
(14:27):
days later.
And this Ottoman conquest atfirst went quickly.
Chania surrendered to them aftera couple of months.
And within a year, the town ofRethymno, and various smaller
strongholds were under Ottomancontrol.
By October of 1647, so two yearsin, the Ottomans began the siege
(14:51):
of Candia the capital city,modern Iraklio.
The siege of Candia continuedinto 1648.
And meanwhile, the Ottomansgained basically all of Crete
except for Candia and a fewminor forts.
The siege of Candia however,would continue for 22 years
(15:11):
until 1669.
So the Venetians tried variousthings to help out their
holdings on Crete.
They tried to blockade theDardanelles to prevent travel to
and from Istanbul.
And this blockade worked forabout a year.
But then the Ottomans were ableto break through.
There were naval battles betweenthe Venetian Ottoman fleets, but
(15:34):
those were inconclusive.
July, 1655.
So a decade into the conquest ofCrete, the Venetians tried to
besiege Monemvasia, that reallystrong fortress on the southern
coast of the Morea.
But they were not able toactually take Monemvasia,
because it was super difficultto conquer.
(15:56):
A few years later in 1659 therewas a newly named Venetian
Captain-General of Crete.
So the man in charge of theVenetian military on Crete.
And his name was FrancescoMorosini.
He encouraged an uprising in thesouthern Morea.
And was able to capture the townand citadel of Kalamata in the
(16:19):
southern Peloponnese.
But this revolt really wentnowhere and they didn't hold
Kalamata for long.
So the siege of Candia went onand on and on.
Until September of 1669.
And this is when the VenetianCaptain General was once again
(16:40):
Francesco Morosini.
So he had been Captain- Generalfor a while and then not.
And now he was back as CaptainGeneral again.
Morosini as Captain Generalagreed to a treaty that the
Venetians would leave Candia butkeep a few small islands and
forts.
Basically he gave up theVenetian position because it was
(17:01):
hopeless that he could eitherstay there and they could be
pushed out and his men couldsuffer or they could leave
alive.
And so Morosini went back toVenice.
Where he was charged withexceeding his powers and other
charges such as treason.
For giving up Candia.
But he was found not guilty.
(17:23):
We'll hear more about Morosiniin just a little bit.
So the war between Venice andthe Ottomans is basically over.
The war on Crete had been superexpensive for the Venetians.
The Venetians were very much indebt and the once powerful fleet
was fairly weak at this point.
And so they made peace with theOttomans and the Venetians
(17:47):
stayed at peace with themthrough the 1670s.
In 1683 the Ottomans laid siegeto the city of Vienna.
They had tried to take Vienna acentury earlier in 1529, but had
failed.
This attempt was also a failure.
To keep up momentum afterrepelling the Ottomans.
(18:09):
Austria, the Pope, and theVenetians formed another
so-called Holy League.
Although Venice was not,especially eager to take part by
some accounts.
So the Austrians focused onfighting the Ottomans in the
area of Hungary.
The Venetians were led by ourold friend, Francesco Morosini.
(18:32):
The same man who had surrenderedCandia on Crete, to the Ottomans
in 1669.
Venetian forces captured theisland of Santa Maura, which is
modern Leucas.
Then the castle of Preveza in1684.
The next spring in 1685.
(18:52):
9,000 men including Venetian,Tuscan, and Germans were all
landed at Coroni that oldVenetian port.
By that fall, this force hadtaken most of the southern Morea
and a Swedish general Count OttoWilliam von Konigsmark was sent
(19:13):
to take command of the troopswhile Morosini was still in
charge of the fleet and of theoverall force.
Now the League got together andtried to decide between targets
before starting the campaignseason in 1686.
Their choices were.
Should they target the island ofChios?
(19:34):
The island of Evia, which theVenetians had held and then lost
to the Ottomans before.
Crete.
Which the Venetians had withinthe last century.
Or should they just go on andtake the entire peninsula of the
Morea?
They chose to focus on theMorea.
And over the next two campaignseasons in 1686 and 1687.
(19:58):
were able to take most of theremaining fortresses.
At Argos, Nauplia, Lepanto,which is actually across the
Gulf of Corinth, they were ableto take Patras and finally
Corinth at the isthmus.
There was still resistance inthe mountains near Mystra which
Konigsmark was working on.
(20:20):
When in September of 1687.
Morosini took the fleet acrossto Attica and besieged Athens.
Now, this means that theVenetians laid siege to the
Acropolis in Athens, which wasone of the most defensible parts
of the city.
It isn't clear whether theVenetians knew that the
(20:42):
Parthenon, the temple of AthenaParthenos, which had become a
Christian Church during theByzantine period and was briefly
a mosque.
But in 1687, it was being usedby the Ottomans to store
gunpowder on the Acropolis.
On Monday, the 26th of September1687.
(21:06):
The Venetians lobbed a shellfrom a nearby hill, into the
Parthenon.
And with the gunpowder that wasstored there.
The shell blew up the building.
And it should be noted that upto that point, the Parthenon and
the sculpture, the very, veryfamous sculpture on the
(21:27):
Parthenon, which was thousandsof years old.
Had been in pretty goodcondition.
Until the Venetians blew up thebuilding.
So the Venetians were able totake the Acropolis.
And then since pieces of theParthenon, were laying on the
ground, it was destroyed.
Anyway.
They decided to try to takepieces of the Parthenon back to
(21:48):
Venice, but weren't able to getgood pieces.
But Morosini was able to grabtwo lions from the nearby port
of Piraeus and send them back toVenice.
And those lions were placed infront of the Arsenal in Venice.
This is a great victory forMorosini had conquered the
(22:09):
entire Morea and taken Athens.
And so when the doge of Venicedied in 1688, Morosini coming
off of his great victories wasunanimously elected as the new
Doge.
Now Morosini was still incommand of the fighting.
And in July of 1688.
(22:32):
He tried to take the island ofEvia, but they were not
successful.
The Venetian forces weredecimated by a disease, perhaps
dysentery or malaria.
Which killed a third of theirforces.
Including the Swedish generalKonigsmark.
(22:54):
And so the Venetians had toretreat, and they were so
destroyed by disease, actuallythat they ended up leaving
Athens as well.
And they retreated to Corinth inthe Morea.
So in the meantime, things hadnot been going well for the
Ottomans.
They had lost practically all ofthe Morea, except for
(23:16):
Monemvasia, that very difficultfortress to take.
And there was an uprising goingon within the Ottoman military.
The Sultan had lost control ofmilitary, basically.
And within three years,commanders of three fortresses,
including Iraklio.
So the Venetian Candia on Crete.
(23:39):
The commanders of these threefortresses were murdered by
their own troops.
And this is not a sign of ahealthy military.
So the fighting continued on.
Morosini tried to takeMonemvasia in 1688.
But, it was very difficult totake.
And when Morosini came down withan illness in January of 1690,
(24:01):
he ended up sailing back toVenice.
The next captain general wassuccessful in taking Monemvasia,
however.
And there had been ongoingfighting in Hungary between the
Austrians and Ottomans theentire time.
So all this fighting continuesuntil 1699.
So it's ongoing for about 15years.
(24:24):
When the treaty of Karlowitz wassigned.
The Austrians, basically theygot Hungary and Transylvania
from the Ottomans while theVenetians got to keep the Morea
and some strongholds, they hadtaken along the coast of modern
Albania.
But Francesco Morosini did notlive to see this treaty because
(24:46):
he died in 1694.
The Venetians who had been incontrol of the Morea basically
since 1687, over a decade laterin 1699, finally gained formal
control of the area.
Before the Treaty of Karlowitzwas formalized in 1699, the
(25:06):
Venetians had already startedsetting up their administration
in the Morea.
They divided up the Morea intofour provinces.
Each one containing a number ofterritories.
The territory of Vostizza was inthe province of Achaia.
And each province had Venetianofficials for administration,
(25:28):
defense, judicial affairs, and atreasurer.
These officials would serve fortwo to three years and then be
replaced, which was the usualVenetian system.
One major thing that theVenetian officials worked on was
compiling records to take stockof what revenue they could
(25:49):
collect through taxes.
The war with the Ottomans, likemost wars was expensive and the
Venetians needed to fill theempty treasury.
The Venetians also intended tochange the system of taxation
from being based on the amountof produce from the land to a
tax on land itself.
(26:10):
So they were going to entirelychange the system that had been
under the Ottomans.
One problem was that there was alot of uncultivated land.
Due to both general depopulationof the region.
So partly from the recent wars,but also a general trend of low
population numbers.
(26:31):
And then there is also the issuethat land was uncultivated
because the Ottoman owners hadfled.
Although, not all of theOttomans had fled.
Some of them were still in theMorea.
So the Venetians invited peoplefrom areas still under Ottoman
control, including Athens and afew other areas that the
Venetians had briefly taken andthen retreated from.
(26:54):
And they invited these peoplesto come settle in the Morea.
To sweeten the deal, theVenetians gave these immigrants
land tax-free for a set numberof years.
At first, it was supposed to beabout eight years.
Tax-free.
But this land was notdistributed to all immigrants
equally.
(27:16):
Immigrants who came from theelite were given large amounts
of land, and very nice landcorresponding to their social
rank.
While other immigrants, morepeasants were given far less
land.
But before the Venetians couldactually tax anybody based on
their land, they needed to knowhow much land each per person
(27:38):
owned and where that land waslocated.
And so the Venetian officialsstarted compiling cadastral
records of land ownership.
This process had two stages.
First a general cadaster withgeneral information about how
many houses, other buildings,such as churches,
(27:59):
infrastructure, such as millsand olive presses, and numbers
of various fruit trees andagricultural animals were
recorded.
These data were recorded basedon a unit called a Villa, which
might have one or more villagesor other types of units within
it.
The second stage was recordingall the parcels of land onto
(28:22):
maps and indicating the owner ofeach parcel.
They also included all theinformation from the first stage
in this more detailed cadaster.
And that's what I read about inthe intro.
Only two territories in theMorea had this more detailed
cadaster completed.
Nauplio and Vostizza.
(28:46):
The cadastral records forVostizza are today located in
the state archives in Venice.
And were published in a book in1993 by Dokos and Panagopoulos.
So in addition to looking atland, the Venetians also had
taxes on various products.
So they taxed wine, olive oil,tobacco, other things like that.
(29:08):
In addition to just wanting tomake sure there was money in the
treasury.
The Venetians were also worriedabout the Ottomans coming back
and trying to take the Moreaaway from them.
So the Venetians spent largesums, refortifying, various
fortresses, such as Corinth.
And they even constructed a newfortress called Palamidi above
(29:33):
the town of Nauplio.
And it turns out the Venetianswere right to be worried.
By 1714, 15 years after thetreaty of Karlowitz, the
Ottomans were once again in astable position.
And they decided to retake theMorea from the Venetians.
Using a pretext, the Sultandeclared war on Venice in
(29:56):
December of 1714.
They actually attacked in 1715,and that attack had two prongs.
First there was a fleet thatsailed through the Aegean Sea.
And the second part was a landforce that marched south through
Thessaly to the Morea.
(30:17):
So they reached the isthmus andbesieged Corinth.
Which was captured by theOttomans after a siege of only
five days.
Most of the other fortresses inthe Morea followed swiftly.
It was a total collapse.
The Venetians decided to onlydefend a few places and they
(30:38):
didn't keep those strongholdseither.
And this is despite all themoney that the Venetians had
spent to strengthen theirfortifications.
So such as building their newfortress of Palamidi in Nauplio.
To add insult to injury, theOttomans also took the last two
remaining Venetian forts onCrete that summer.
(31:00):
And by the end of 1715, theVenetians only had the island of
Corfu left out of all the placesthey had actually captured in
the 1680s, 1690s, all they hadleft was the island of Corfu.
And so fighting then moved toCorfu.
In 1717, the Venetians were ableto fight off the Ottomans at sea
(31:23):
and capture two ports, butotherwise they really weren't
making any gains.
Their Austrian allies from the1680s were concerned with other
matters.
And instead of helping theVenetians fight.
They instead said, Hey, makepeace with the Ottomans.
And they helped them negotiatethe Passarowitz treaty.
(31:46):
Which was signed in 1719.
The loss of the Morea in 1719was Venice's last hurrah as a
player on the world stage.
And the Morea along with therest of Greece.
Was entirely in Ottoman handsagain.
Where it would stay for about acentury.
(32:09):
But we'll talk about that nexttime.
Now The end notes.
One thing.
If you're interested in some ofthe various castles and
fortifications in thePeloponnese, there's a book by
Kevin Andrews called Castles ofthe Morea, which is a really
good source.
The book was originallypublished in 1953, but was
(32:30):
re-released in 2006.
You can even get it as an ebook.
I also want to say.
I probably put a bit more detailin this episode than in some of
the others.
And that's because I know thisperiod very well.
This is the period that my MAthesis was focused on.
And so I already had a lot ofinformation and knowledge about
(32:52):
this period.
Anyway, thanks for listening.
Email questions or comments todeepdive@helonaki.com or ask
them on the Helonaki Deep DiveFacebook page.
Show notes with links toresources mentioned in this
episode will be available athelonaki.com.
That's H E L O N A K I.com.
(33:14):
You can also find ways tosupport the show now, including
merch such as t-shirts mugs andstickers with the Helonaki Deep
Dive logo athelonaki.com/support.
My thanks to Patreon supportersat the geospatial analyst level,
Leah Varrell and Janice andJerry Farrell.
Your support keeps the HelonakiDeep Dive going.
(33:35):
The Helonaki Deep Dive iswritten and produced by me, Jen
Glaubius of the Helonaki.
The theme music is Deep OceanInstrumental by Dan-o of
danosongs.com additional soundsfrom zapsplat.com.
Thanks for listening.
The territory of Vostizza was subdivided into 34 areas
containing one or morelocalities.
There was a town of Vostizzaitself.
30 inhabited villages and twouninhabited villages.
There were also 11 localitiesname as a zeogolatio, two of
(00:21):
which were uninhabited.
And there were five monasteriesin the territory.
Listed for each area was thenumber of buildings of various
types, and the condition of thebuildings.
Whether they were intact or indisrepair.
Numbers of fruit trees, such asolive, lemon and mulberry among
(00:42):
many others and the numbers ofanimals, including oxen, sheep,
goats, and interestinglybeehives were also included.
The number of families in eachvillage or area.
And whether they were local tothe area or had immigrated.
Sometimes also, including wherethey had immigrated from were
(01:07):
also among the listings.
In addition, each parcel of landwas mapped.
And recorded with the name ofthe owner.
And the area of each parcelwritten down in three
measurement systems.
Four measurement systems, if theparcel was a vineyard.
(01:28):
This is information listed inthe detailed cadaster of the
villages and areas in theterritory of Vostizza created by
the order of Francesco GrimaniThe Proveditor General collected
by Francesco Vandeyk, IngeniorPublico in the year 1700.
(01:49):
Published in a 1993 book byDokos and Panagopoulos.
I'm Jen Glaubius and this is theHelonaki Deep Dive.
A podcast about mapping andanalysis for historical and
archeological research.
In this episode, I'll discussthe continuing story of Ottoman
Venetian relations.
Culminating in the second periodof Venetian rule in the Morea.
(02:14):
Let's dive in.
We're going to start where weleft off in the last episode,
just after the battle of Lepantoin 1571.
Remember that battle was acrushing defeat for the
Ottomans, but afterwards theywere able to quickly rebuild
their fleets.
(02:35):
And the Holy League who are onthe other side of the battle,
did not press their advantage.
And soon that leaguedisintegrated.
Venice in a few years, soughtpeace with the Ottomans.
And remember all of this hadstarted when the Ottomans
decided to take over the islandof Cyprus from the Venetians.
(02:56):
In this peace between theOttomans and Venice, the
Venetians had to accept the lossof Cyprus.
And they had to pay a large sumof money, to the Ottomans.
Things did not really go wellfor the Venetians, despite being
on the winning side of theBattle of Lepanto.
(03:17):
But despite coming out ahead bygetting Cyprus.
The Ottoman empire went throughsome problems in the last
quarter of the 16th century.
Earlier, the Ottoman economy hadbeen fueled by expansion of the
territory of the empire byadding more and more area to the
(03:37):
empire.
But there was much lessexpansion and of much smaller
areas from here on out.
There was also a financialcrisis in the last bit of the
16th century.
That was linked to colonialexploitation in the Western
hemisphere.
(03:58):
And this financial crisis wasexacerbated by changes in
warfare.
That in turn affectedlandholding across the Ottoman
empire.
So let's break this down.
To start with.
Silver that Spain looted frommodern day, Bolivia and Mexico
flooded into Europe.
(04:19):
And this lowered the value ofsilver all over Europe,
including in the Ottoman empire.
Over the winter of 1585/ 1586.
The Ottoman government debasedtheir silver coin.
And that caused instabilitysince the debasement made prices
(04:40):
of food and other goodsinflated.
So they suffered underinflation.
This also meant that less realmoney was flowing into the
Ottoman treasury.
And so to make up for theshortfalls.
The government put new taxes onpeasants, which of course made
the peasants very angry.
(05:01):
Nobody likes having their taxesraised.
The Ottomans also extended thesystem of tax farming.
We talked about this, a fewepisodes back talking about tax
farming and the Byzantineempire.
But just as a reminder, Taxfarming is that the government
would take bids for individualsor groups to collect taxes.
(05:24):
The tax farmer would pay thebid, which was the amount of
taxes that the government washoping to get.
And then that tax farmer wouldgo and extract as much money as
they could from the people inthe area.
They were Trying to collect asmuch money as they could to
profit on top of the amount thatthey had bid.
So obviously this system wasrife with corruption.
(05:47):
You could bribe an official toget your bid put in.
You would try to extract as muchmoney from people as possible.
It's just a really horriblesystem.
So, of course this also madepeople angry.
Changes in the Ottoman militaryalso led to immediate and then
later on long-term disruptionsin the Ottoman empire.
(06:09):
In the late 16th century, thenature of warfare had changed.
And so now most warfare happenedas sieges of forts or towns
rather than cavalry charges.
Now.
The Ottoman military had beenbased on the cavalry.
And that was reflected in theland revenue system.
(06:31):
Where tax revenue was allottedto cavalrymen to pay for their
upkeep so that they would beable to support themselves and
go out on military campaigns.
Once the cavalry was less usefulin these siege situations, what
you really wanted was infantryand you wanted them to have
(06:52):
muskets.
And for the Ottomans, thosemusket bearing infantry were the
Janissaries.
Now, this is a very touchytopic.
The first Janissaries wereChristian prisoners of war from
the Balkans early on in theempire.
But then the Ottomans decided todraw youths from Christian
(07:17):
villages in the Balkans.
So.
Ottoman officials would go toChristian villages and select a
certain number of youths,probably teens to be trained as
soldiers, as administrators, orto serve the Sultan.
And so they were taken fromtheir families.
They would have to convert toIslam.
(07:39):
And.
Of course, this is horrifictaking kids from their families
and forcing them to convert intoanother religion is very, very
awful.
This practice, which went out ofuse later on.
Would definitely be a chargeagainst the Ottomans.
But for now here in the late16th century, the Janissaries
(08:04):
were very important to theOttoman military But it's
important to note.
That the Janissaries were paid asalary rather than being given
revenue from the land.
Now the Ottomans also tried toenlist peasant Muslim men to
serve.
So they'd say, okay, you enlistfor a short time, you'll serve
(08:26):
for one campaign and then returnhome.
This backfired on the Ottomans.
However, because once theirenlistment was done, these
peasant men would end up keepingtheir guns.
And now that they had a littlebit of military training.
They would go back.
To Anatolia where most of themwere from.
(08:48):
But instead of going backpeacefully to farming, They
would become brigands.
And.
They were dangerous because theywere unhappy about the high
taxes that they were paying.
And they had guns and a bit ofmilitary training.
So, the Ottomans stopped tryingto enlist the peasant Muslim men
(09:11):
and instead increased the numberof Janissaries.
And you see this in the numbers.
Janissaries increased in numberfrom 8,000 in 1527.
To almost 40,000 in 1609.
So huge increase within acentury.
But when you have moreJanissaries who are paid a
(09:35):
salary.
That's more money that had tocome out of the Ottoman
treasury.
And so the treasury became moreand more strained.
Of course the Janissaries wouldbecome unhappy if they were not
paid and with their militarytraining and the guns that they
had.
They would sometimes revolt.
This happened in May of 1622when the Sultan Osman, the
(09:58):
second.
Was actually killed byJanissaries during this revolt.
Most of the time, the revoltsdid not reach that level, but
these revolts would happenperiodically continuing forward
in the history of the Ottomanempire.
So you can see that the Ottomansystem had radically changed by
1632 when there were reforms ontax collection and landholding.
(10:22):
Timars, those grants of landrevenue that were given to
cavalrymen.
Were supposed to be granted formilitary service, but through
time that had changed and theyhad then been passed down from
father to son.
So there were the reforms in1632 to try to end that
hereditary inheritance of landrevenue.
(10:45):
And they also tried to make itthat Janissaries could be given
timars.
But the Janissaries reallypreferred to have their
salaries.
And nothing really changed withthe land revenue.
It continued to be inherited.
After the battle of Lepanto in1571.
(11:06):
The Venetians had tried to stayat peace with the Ottomans.
Because they had big, bigproblems going on in Italy.
So there were a few minorincidents between the Venetians
and Ottomans, but nothing biguntil the 1640s.
At this point, the Venetiansstill controlled the island of
Crete.
In 1644, an Ottoman galley wasbound for Mecca.
(11:30):
But it was attacked and capturedby the Knights of Malta.
This captured ship was taken toCrete.
And this is where we end up ina, he said, she said situation.
So the Venetians, when asked toexplain what happened to the
Sultan said that, okay, the shiptried to stop a few places,
docked very briefly, but theywere ordered to leave by the
(11:53):
Venetian governor.
They definitely did not doanything on the island of Crete,
which the Venetians held.
The other side of the story wasfrom Ottoman sailors who had
survived and made their way tothe Sultan.
And these sailors said, okay,this captured ship went to
Crete, and that's where thestories agreed.
(12:15):
But they said, instead of beingturned away immediately, this
ship was on Crete for at least20 days.
And that a bunch of goods andpeople on that ship who had been
enslaved were sold off on theisland.
I don't know which story istrue, and that doesn't really
matter.
Because what really matters isthat the Sultan believed the
(12:38):
Ottoman sailors and decided toattack Venetian held Crete.
The Venetians had had create asa colony, since 1211 after the
fourth crusade.
The Venetians called the islandCandia after the name of the
capital city, which is modernday Iraklio.
The Venetian government of Cretewas supposed to be like the
(13:00):
government of the VenetianRepublic itself.
Where they had a governor whowould be called a doge and a
great council.
But instead of being electedlocally, the governor had a two
year term and was appointed byVenice.
And really all of the decisionswere made in Venice.
(13:20):
To make things even worse, thebest land on the island had been
snapped up by prominent Venetianfamilies.
And so they owned these largeestates in the area with the
best land on the island.
And so over the centuries thatthe Venetians had held Crete,
there were many uprisings bylocal people.
(13:41):
Since They had no autonomy andthey were not especially happy
with the Venetians.
So the Ottoman Sultan haddecided to attack Crete and at
the end of April 1645.
An Ottoman fleet of 400 shipspassed through the Dardanelles
into the Aegean Sea.
(14:03):
This fleet sailed past Crete.
So it did not directly go toCrete, but instead went to the
southwestern Morea and docked atNavarino.
Where they gathered supplies andreinforcements.
The fleet then left Navarino inlate June and landed west of the
city of Chania in thenorthwestern part of Crete a few
(14:27):
days later.
And this Ottoman conquest atfirst went quickly.
Chania surrendered to them aftera couple of months.
And within a year, the town ofRethymno, and various smaller
strongholds were under Ottomancontrol.
By October of 1647, so two yearsin, the Ottomans began the siege
(14:51):
of Candia the capital city,modern Iraklio.
The siege of Candia continuedinto 1648.
And meanwhile, the Ottomansgained basically all of Crete
except for Candia and a fewminor forts.
The siege of Candia however,would continue for 22 years
(15:11):
until 1669.
So the Venetians tried variousthings to help out their
holdings on Crete.
They tried to blockade theDardanelles to prevent travel to
and from Istanbul.
And this blockade worked forabout a year.
But then the Ottomans were ableto break through.
There were naval battles betweenthe Venetian Ottoman fleets, but
(15:34):
those were inconclusive.
July, 1655.
So a decade into the conquest ofCrete, the Venetians tried to
besiege Monemvasia, that reallystrong fortress on the southern
coast of the Morea.
But they were not able toactually take Monemvasia,
because it was super difficultto conquer.
(15:56):
A few years later in 1659 therewas a newly named Venetian
Captain-General of Crete.
So the man in charge of theVenetian military on Crete.
And his name was FrancescoMorosini.
He encouraged an uprising in thesouthern Morea.
And was able to capture the townand citadel of Kalamata in the
(16:19):
southern Peloponnese.
But this revolt really wentnowhere and they didn't hold
Kalamata for long.
So the siege of Candia went onand on and on.
Until September of 1669.
And this is when the VenetianCaptain General was once again
(16:40):
Francesco Morosini.
So he had been Captain- Generalfor a while and then not.
And now he was back as CaptainGeneral again.
Morosini as Captain Generalagreed to a treaty that the
Venetians would leave Candia butkeep a few small islands and
forts.
Basically he gave up theVenetian position because it was
(17:01):
hopeless that he could eitherstay there and they could be
pushed out and his men couldsuffer or they could leave
alive.
And so Morosini went back toVenice.
Where he was charged withexceeding his powers and other
charges such as treason.
For giving up Candia.
But he was found not guilty.
(17:23):
We'll hear more about Morosiniin just a little bit.
So the war between Venice andthe Ottomans is basically over.
The war on Crete had been superexpensive for the Venetians.
The Venetians were very much indebt and the once powerful fleet
was fairly weak at this point.
And so they made peace with theOttomans and the Venetians
(17:47):
stayed at peace with themthrough the 1670s.
In 1683 the Ottomans laid siegeto the city of Vienna.
They had tried to take Vienna acentury earlier in 1529, but had
failed.
This attempt was also a failure.
To keep up momentum afterrepelling the Ottomans.
(18:09):
Austria, the Pope, and theVenetians formed another
so-called Holy League.
Although Venice was not,especially eager to take part by
some accounts.
So the Austrians focused onfighting the Ottomans in the
area of Hungary.
The Venetians were led by ourold friend, Francesco Morosini.
(18:32):
The same man who had surrenderedCandia on Crete, to the Ottomans
in 1669.
Venetian forces captured theisland of Santa Maura, which is
modern Leucas.
Then the castle of Preveza in1684.
The next spring in 1685.
(18:52):
9,000 men including Venetian,Tuscan, and Germans were all
landed at Coroni that oldVenetian port.
By that fall, this force hadtaken most of the southern Morea
and a Swedish general Count OttoWilliam von Konigsmark was sent
(19:13):
to take command of the troopswhile Morosini was still in
charge of the fleet and of theoverall force.
Now the League got together andtried to decide between targets
before starting the campaignseason in 1686.
Their choices were.
Should they target the island ofChios?
(19:34):
The island of Evia, which theVenetians had held and then lost
to the Ottomans before.
Crete.
Which the Venetians had withinthe last century.
Or should they just go on andtake the entire peninsula of the
Morea?
They chose to focus on theMorea.
And over the next two campaignseasons in 1686 and 1687.
(19:58):
were able to take most of theremaining fortresses.
At Argos, Nauplia, Lepanto,which is actually across the
Gulf of Corinth, they were ableto take Patras and finally
Corinth at the isthmus.
There was still resistance inthe mountains near Mystra which
Konigsmark was working on.
(20:20):
When in September of 1687.
Morosini took the fleet acrossto Attica and besieged Athens.
Now, this means that theVenetians laid siege to the
Acropolis in Athens, which wasone of the most defensible parts
of the city.
It isn't clear whether theVenetians knew that the
(20:42):
Parthenon, the temple of AthenaParthenos, which had become a
Christian Church during theByzantine period and was briefly
a mosque.
But in 1687, it was being usedby the Ottomans to store
gunpowder on the Acropolis.
On Monday, the 26th of September1687.
(21:06):
The Venetians lobbed a shellfrom a nearby hill, into the
Parthenon.
And with the gunpowder that wasstored there.
The shell blew up the building.
And it should be noted that upto that point, the Parthenon and
the sculpture, the very, veryfamous sculpture on the
(21:27):
Parthenon, which was thousandsof years old.
Had been in pretty goodcondition.
Until the Venetians blew up thebuilding.
So the Venetians were able totake the Acropolis.
And then since pieces of theParthenon, were laying on the
ground, it was destroyed.
Anyway.
They decided to try to takepieces of the Parthenon back to
(21:48):
Venice, but weren't able to getgood pieces.
But Morosini was able to grabtwo lions from the nearby port
of Piraeus and send them back toVenice.
And those lions were placed infront of the Arsenal in Venice.
This is a great victory forMorosini had conquered the
(22:09):
entire Morea and taken Athens.
And so when the doge of Venicedied in 1688, Morosini coming
off of his great victories wasunanimously elected as the new
Doge.
Now Morosini was still incommand of the fighting.
And in July of 1688.
(22:32):
He tried to take the island ofEvia, but they were not
successful.
The Venetian forces weredecimated by a disease, perhaps
dysentery or malaria.
Which killed a third of theirforces.
Including the Swedish generalKonigsmark.
(22:54):
And so the Venetians had toretreat, and they were so
destroyed by disease, actuallythat they ended up leaving
Athens as well.
And they retreated to Corinth inthe Morea.
So in the meantime, things hadnot been going well for the
Ottomans.
They had lost practically all ofthe Morea, except for
(23:16):
Monemvasia, that very difficultfortress to take.
And there was an uprising goingon within the Ottoman military.
The Sultan had lost control ofmilitary, basically.
And within three years,commanders of three fortresses,
including Iraklio.
So the Venetian Candia on Crete.
(23:39):
The commanders of these threefortresses were murdered by
their own troops.
And this is not a sign of ahealthy military.
So the fighting continued on.
Morosini tried to takeMonemvasia in 1688.
But, it was very difficult totake.
And when Morosini came down withan illness in January of 1690,
(24:01):
he ended up sailing back toVenice.
The next captain general wassuccessful in taking Monemvasia,
however.
And there had been ongoingfighting in Hungary between the
Austrians and Ottomans theentire time.
So all this fighting continuesuntil 1699.
So it's ongoing for about 15years.
(24:24):
When the treaty of Karlowitz wassigned.
The Austrians, basically theygot Hungary and Transylvania
from the Ottomans while theVenetians got to keep the Morea
and some strongholds, they hadtaken along the coast of modern
Albania.
But Francesco Morosini did notlive to see this treaty because
(24:46):
he died in 1694.
The Venetians who had been incontrol of the Morea basically
since 1687, over a decade laterin 1699, finally gained formal
control of the area.
Before the Treaty of Karlowitzwas formalized in 1699, the
(25:06):
Venetians had already startedsetting up their administration
in the Morea.
They divided up the Morea intofour provinces.
Each one containing a number ofterritories.
The territory of Vostizza was inthe province of Achaia.
And each province had Venetianofficials for administration,
(25:28):
defense, judicial affairs, and atreasurer.
These officials would serve fortwo to three years and then be
replaced, which was the usualVenetian system.
One major thing that theVenetian officials worked on was
compiling records to take stockof what revenue they could
(25:49):
collect through taxes.
The war with the Ottomans, likemost wars was expensive and the
Venetians needed to fill theempty treasury.
The Venetians also intended tochange the system of taxation
from being based on the amountof produce from the land to a
tax on land itself.
(26:10):
So they were going to entirelychange the system that had been
under the Ottomans.
One problem was that there was alot of uncultivated land.
Due to both general depopulationof the region.
So partly from the recent wars,but also a general trend of low
population numbers.
(26:31):
And then there is also the issuethat land was uncultivated
because the Ottoman owners hadfled.
Although, not all of theOttomans had fled.
Some of them were still in theMorea.
So the Venetians invited peoplefrom areas still under Ottoman
control, including Athens and afew other areas that the
Venetians had briefly taken andthen retreated from.
(26:54):
And they invited these peoplesto come settle in the Morea.
To sweeten the deal, theVenetians gave these immigrants
land tax-free for a set numberof years.
At first, it was supposed to beabout eight years.
Tax-free.
But this land was notdistributed to all immigrants
equally.
(27:16):
Immigrants who came from theelite were given large amounts
of land, and very nice landcorresponding to their social
rank.
While other immigrants, morepeasants were given far less
land.
But before the Venetians couldactually tax anybody based on
their land, they needed to knowhow much land each per person
(27:38):
owned and where that land waslocated.
And so the Venetian officialsstarted compiling cadastral
records of land ownership.
This process had two stages.
First a general cadaster withgeneral information about how
many houses, other buildings,such as churches,
(27:59):
infrastructure, such as millsand olive presses, and numbers
of various fruit trees andagricultural animals were
recorded.
These data were recorded basedon a unit called a Villa, which
might have one or more villagesor other types of units within
it.
The second stage was recordingall the parcels of land onto
(28:22):
maps and indicating the owner ofeach parcel.
They also included all theinformation from the first stage
in this more detailed cadaster.
And that's what I read about inthe intro.
Only two territories in theMorea had this more detailed
cadaster completed.
Nauplio and Vostizza.
(28:46):
The cadastral records forVostizza are today located in
the state archives in Venice.
And were published in a book in1993 by Dokos and Panagopoulos.
So in addition to looking atland, the Venetians also had
taxes on various products.
So they taxed wine, olive oil,tobacco, other things like that.
(29:08):
In addition to just wanting tomake sure there was money in the
treasury.
The Venetians were also worriedabout the Ottomans coming back
and trying to take the Moreaaway from them.
So the Venetians spent largesums, refortifying, various
fortresses, such as Corinth.
And they even constructed a newfortress called Palamidi above
(29:33):
the town of Nauplio.
And it turns out the Venetianswere right to be worried.
By 1714, 15 years after thetreaty of Karlowitz, the
Ottomans were once again in astable position.
And they decided to retake theMorea from the Venetians.
Using a pretext, the Sultandeclared war on Venice in
(29:56):
December of 1714.
They actually attacked in 1715,and that attack had two prongs.
First there was a fleet thatsailed through the Aegean Sea.
And the second part was a landforce that marched south through
Thessaly to the Morea.
(30:17):
So they reached the isthmus andbesieged Corinth.
Which was captured by theOttomans after a siege of only
five days.
Most of the other fortresses inthe Morea followed swiftly.
It was a total collapse.
The Venetians decided to onlydefend a few places and they
(30:38):
didn't keep those strongholdseither.
And this is despite all themoney that the Venetians had
spent to strengthen theirfortifications.
So such as building their newfortress of Palamidi in Nauplio.
To add insult to injury, theOttomans also took the last two
remaining Venetian forts onCrete that summer.
(31:00):
And by the end of 1715, theVenetians only had the island of
Corfu left out of all the placesthey had actually captured in
the 1680s, 1690s, all they hadleft was the island of Corfu.
And so fighting then moved toCorfu.
In 1717, the Venetians were ableto fight off the Ottomans at sea
(31:23):
and capture two ports, butotherwise they really weren't
making any gains.
Their Austrian allies from the1680s were concerned with other
matters.
And instead of helping theVenetians fight.
They instead said, Hey, makepeace with the Ottomans.
And they helped them negotiatethe Passarowitz treaty.
(31:46):
Which was signed in 1719.
The loss of the Morea in 1719was Venice's last hurrah as a
player on the world stage.
And the Morea along with therest of Greece.
Was entirely in Ottoman handsagain.
Where it would stay for about acentury.
(32:09):
But we'll talk about that nexttime.
Now The end notes.
One thing.
If you're interested in some ofthe various castles and
fortifications in thePeloponnese, there's a book by
Kevin Andrews called Castles ofthe Morea, which is a really
good source.
The book was originallypublished in 1953, but was
(32:30):
re-released in 2006.
You can even get it as an ebook.
I also want to say.
I probably put a bit more detailin this episode than in some of
the others.
And that's because I know thisperiod very well.
This is the period that my MAthesis was focused on.
And so I already had a lot ofinformation and knowledge about
(32:52):
this period.
Anyway, thanks for listening.
Email questions or comments todeepdive@helonaki.com or ask
them on the Helonaki Deep DiveFacebook page.
Show notes with links toresources mentioned in this
episode will be available athelonaki.com.
That's H E L O N A K I.com.
(33:14):
You can also find ways tosupport the show now, including
merch such as t-shirts mugs andstickers with the Helonaki Deep
Dive logo athelonaki.com/support.
My thanks to Patreon supportersat the geospatial analyst level,
Leah Varrell and Janice andJerry Farrell.
Your support keeps the HelonakiDeep Dive going.
(33:35):
The Helonaki Deep Dive iswritten and produced by me, Jen
Glaubius of the Helonaki.
The theme music is Deep OceanInstrumental by Dan-o of
danosongs.com additional soundsfrom zapsplat.com.
Thanks for listening.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com