Part 22

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.

Great was the joy at Venice when it was known that the insurrection had been suppressed. Three days were given up to thanksgivings and festivities, at which Petrarch was present, and of which he has left an account. Foreign powers congratulated the Republic on its success, while in Crete itself the new Duke ordered the celebration of May 10 in each year-the anniversary of the capitulation of Candia—as a public holiday. But the peace, or perhaps we should say desolation, of the island was soon disturbed. Some of the banished colonists combined with three brothers of the redoubtable family of the Kallergai, who proclaimed the Byzantine Emperor sovereign of Crete. This time the Venetian Government sent troops at once to Candia, but hunger proved a more effective weapon than the sword. The inhabitants of Lasithi, where the insurgents had their headquarters, surrendered the ringleaders rather than starve. Then followed a fresh series of savage sentences, for the Republic considered that no mercy should be shown to such constant rebels. While the chiefs were sent to the block, the whole plateau of Lasithi was converted into a desert, the peasants were carried off and their cottages pulled down, and the loss of a foot and the confiscation of his cattle were pronounced to be the penalty of any farmer or herdsman who should dare to sow corn there or to use the spot for pasture. This cruel and ridiculous order was obeyed to the letter; for nearly a century one of the most fertile districts of Crete was allowed to remain in a state of nature, till at last in 1463 the urgent requirements of the Venetian fleet compelled the Senate to consent to the recultivation of Lasithi. But as soon as the temporary exigencies of the public service had been satisfied, Lasithi fell once more under the ban, until towards the end of the fifteenth century the plain was placed under the immediate supervision of the Duke and his Councillors. It would be hard to discover any more suicidal policy than this, which crippled the resources of the colony in order to gratify a feeling of revenge. But it has ever been the misfortune of Crete that the folly of her rulers has done everything possible to counteract her natural advantages.

A long period of peace now ensued, a peace born not of prosperous contentment but of hopeless exhaustion. The first act of the Republic was to substitute for the original oath of fealty, exacted from the colonists at the time of the first great settlement in 1212, a much stricter formula of obedience. The next was to put up to auction the vacant fiefs of the executed and banished knights at Venice, for it had been resolved that none of those estates should be acquired by members of the Greek aristocracy. The bidding was not very brisk, for Crete had a bad character on the Venetian exchange, so that, some years later, on the destruction of the castle of Tenedos, the Republic transported the whole population to Candia. There they settled outside the capital in a suburb which, from their old home, received the name of Le Tenedee[190].

We hear little about Crete during the first half of the fifteenth century, which was so critical a time for the Franks of the mainland. The principal grievance of the colonists at that period seems to have been the arrogance of the Jews, against whom they twice petitioned the Government. It was a Jew, however, who, together with a priest, betrayed to the Duke the plot which had been concocted by a leading Greek of Rethymno in 1453 for the murder of all the Venetian officials on one day, the incarceration of all other foreigners, and the proclamation of a Greek prince as sovereign of the island. The capture of Constantinople by the Turks in that year, followed as it was by the flight of many Greek families to Crete, induced the Venetians to take more stringent precautions against the intrigues of their Cretan subjects. An order was issued empowering the Duke to make away with any suspected Cretans without trial or public inquiry of any kind. We are reminded by this horrible ordinance of the secret commission for the slaughter of dangerous Helots which had been one of the laws of Lycurgus. Nothing could better show the insecurity of Venetian rule, even after two centuries and a half had passed since the conquest. Another incident, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, shows how savage was the punishment meted out to the insurgents, with the approval of the authorities. At that period the Cretans of Selmo, Sphakia, and the Rhiza, not far from the latter place united their forces against their Venetian masters under the leadership of the Pateropouloi clan. The three insurgent districts were formed into an independent Republic, of which a leading Greek was chosen Rector. The Venetians of Canea, under the pretext of a wedding feast at the villa of one of their countrymen at the charming village of Alikianou, lured the Rector and some fifty of his friends to that place, seized the guests after the banquet, and hanged or shot him, his son, and many others in cold blood. The remainder of the rebels were rigorously proscribed, and a pardon was granted to those alone who produced at Canea the gory head of a father, a brother, a cousin, or a nephew[191]. Nor were the foes of Venice only those of her own household. The Turkish peril, which had manifested itself in sporadic raids before the fall of Constantinople, became more pressing after the loss of the Morea. Appeals were made by the inhabitants for reinforcements and arms, and at last, when the capture of Eubœa by the Turks had deprived them of that valuable station, the Venetians turned their thoughts to the protection of Crete, and resolved to restore the walls of Candia. Those who saw, like the author, those magnificent fortifications before the sea-gate was destroyed by the British troops in 1898, can estimate the strength of the town in the later Venetian period. Unfortunately, those ramparts, which afterwards kept the Turks at bay for twenty-four years, could not prevent the dreaded Barbarossa’s ravages on other parts of the coast. In 1538 that great captain appeared with the whole Turkish fleet—then a very different affair from the wretched hulks of 1898 which were a terror only to their crews—landed at Suda Bay, laid all the adjacent country waste, and nearly captured Canea. Thirty years later, this raid was repeated with even greater success, for Rethymno was destroyed, and soon the loss of Cyprus deprived Crete of a bulwark which had hitherto divided the attention of the advancing Turk. Venice was, at length, thoroughly alarmed for the safety of her great possession, and she took the resolve of introducing drastic reforms into the island. With this object an experienced statesman, Giacomo Foscarini, was sent to Crete in 1574 as special commissioner, with full powers to inquire into, and redress, the grievances of the islanders. Foscarini, well aware that his task would be no easy one, endeavoured to excuse himself on private grounds; but his patriotism prevailed over all other considerations, and he set out for Crete with the intention of increasing the resources of the island and at the same time protecting the inhabitants against the oppression of those placed over them. In accordance with this policy, he issued, as soon as he had landed, a proclamation, urging all who had grievances against any Venetian official to come without fear, either openly or in secret, before him, in the certainty of obtaining justice and redress. He then proceeded to study the condition of the country, and it is fortunate that the results of his investigation have been preserved in an official report, which throws a flood of light on the state of Crete during the latter half of the sixteenth century[192].

At the time of Foscarini’s visit the island was divided up into 479 fiefs, 394 of which belonged to Venetians, who were no longer subdivided into the two original classes of knights and sergeants, or foot soldiers, but were all collectively known as knights. Of the remaining fiefs, thirty-five belonged to native Cretan families, twenty-five to the Latin Church, and twenty-five to the Venetian Government. None of these last three classes paid taxes or yielded service of any sort to the Republic, though a rent was derived from such of the State domains as were let. As might be guessed from the frequent repetition of Cretan insurrections, the condition of the native Cretan aristocracy was one of the most serious problems in the island. When Venice had adopted, somewhat reluctantly, the plan of bestowing fiefs on the Greek leaders, twelve prominent Cretan families had been selected, whose descendants, styled _archontópouloi_, or _archontoromaîoi_, formed a privileged class without obligations of any sort. As time went on, the numbers of these families had increased, till, shortly before Foscarini’s visit, they comprised at least 400 souls. But, as the number of the fiefs at their disposal remained the same, a series of subdivisions became necessary, and this led to those continual quarrels, which were the inevitable result of the feudal system all over Greece. A hard and fast line was soon drawn between the richer “sons of the _archontes_,” who lived a life of idleness and luxury in the towns, and the poorer members of the clan, who sank into the position of peasants on their bit of land, without, however, losing their privileges and their pride of descent. The latter quality involved them in perpetual feuds with rival families equally aristocratic and equally penniless, and the celebrated district of Sphakia, in particular, had even then acquired the evil notoriety for turbulent independence which it preserved down to the end of the nineteenth century. Shortly before Foscarini appeared on the scene, a Venetian commissioner had paid a visit to that spot for the express purpose of chastising the local family of the Pateroi, whose hereditary feud with the family of the Papadopouloi of Rethymno had become a public scandal. Both the parties, the latter of whom still has a representative in an illustrious family resident at Venice, were of common stock, for both were branches of the ancient Cretan clan of the Skordiloi. But they hated one another with all the bitterness of near relatives; revenge was the most precious heritage of their race; the bloody garment of each victim was treasured up by his family, every member of which wore mourning till his murder had been wiped out in blood; and thus, as in Albania to-day, and in Corsica in the days of Mérimée, there was no end to the chain of assassinations. On this occasion the Sphakiotes, who could well maintain the classic reputation of the Cretan bowmen, were completely crushed by the heavily armed troops of Venice. Their homes were burned to the ground, those who resisted were slain; those who were captured were sent into exile at Corfù, where they mostly died of cruel treatment or home-sickness, the home-sickness which every true Cretan feels for his mountains. The survivors of the clan were forbidden to rebuild their dwellings or to approach within many miles of their beloved Sphakia. The inhospitable valleys and rough uplands became their refuge, and winter and lack of food had been steadily diminishing their numbers when Foscarini arrived at Sphakia to see for himself how things were in that notorious district.