The Archaeology of Landscape and Material Culture in Late Byzantine – Frankish Greece

Pharos 20(1), 313-346. doi: 10.2143/PHA.20.1.3064546

© 2014 by Pharos. All rights reserved.

The archaeology of landscape and material culture in

Late Byzantine � Frankish GreeceATHANASIOS K. VIONIS

Abstract

The study of aspects of site location, land use, production and consumption and non-elite mate-rial culture was generally neglected by Medieval archaeology in present-day Greece until a couple of decades ago, at a time when priority was given to monumental art and architecture. The number of studies, however, that have been published and the number of theses that have been completed over the past 10 to 15 years on the archaeology of the period after the end of Late Antiquity is immense. The aim of this contribution is to provide a survey of recent developments on the archaeology of the Late Byzantine – Frankish period in Greece, focusing on those advances and results that have provided significant insights into the evolution of Late Medieval society and culture. More specifically, this paper examines issues related to: 1) landscapes, settle-ment archaeology and economic activity; 2) fortifications and power; 3) domestic architecture and the use of space; 4) artefacts, consumption and meaning; 5) religious art and architecture, and identity.

Keywords

Byzantine – Frankish – Crusader – landscape – ceramics – religion.

Introduction

William Miller,1 one of the very first scholars of Late Byzantine or Frankish

Greece, in his pioneering work The Latins in the Levant, produced the first solid

and nearly complete history of mainland Greece and the Greek islands (apart from

Crete, which was then not included in the Kingdom of Greece) on the basis of

Venetian published documents2 and tells the romantic yet fascinating stories of

‘the fighting religious orders and great Latin families, whose names are not yet

1 Miller 1908. According to Lock (1995, 31), Miller’s monumental volume, although ‘outdated’, con-tinues to represent one of the main historical works of the period.2 Bury 1909, 135-136.

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314 ATHANASIOS K. VIONIS

extinct’.3 Miller had wisely noted in the concluding paragraph of his book that

‘serious contemporary researchers treat the Italian dukes as intruders to ancient

Greek soil and would wish to demolish their towers in the same manner the dukes

previously demolished the ancient temples’.4

It would be an exaggeration to state that the historical and archaeological study

of the Greek High Middle Ages in 2014 is still in its infancy and that the tradi-

tional focus of archaeologists working in Greece still concentrates on the remains

of Greco-Roman antiquity. The infant has grown, but has not yet become an

adult, while its first solid steps have by now made clear that the systematic study

of the Medieval material remains of Greco-Byzantines, Franks, Venetians, Geno-

ese, Catalans and Albanians offers us evidence as serious and secure as that deriv-

ing from texts, religious art and ecclesiastical architecture. It is true, however, that

the over-recited slogan ‘digging through the Byz’ represents the reality of an age

of traditional archaeology until the late 1980s or the early 1990s, that treated the

Greek Middle Ages simply as intrusive rubbish dumps over the precious layers

of the glorious Classical past or even the more remote eras of prehistory. More

studies have appeared since then. Some of them still comprise a so-called ‘tradi-

tional’ approach to the period (although still badly needed before proceeding

to more interpretative essays on specific topics), while others have significantly

contributed to our understanding and appreciation of the period, through the

application of scientific techniques and theoretical approaches borrowed from

other disciplines, including archaeology, developed in northwest Europe and

the USA.

Some of the problems the archaeology of this period faces, as any other phase

of the Greek Middle Ages and the Post-Medieval era, is that both historical and

archaeological evidence are not available to the same degree and quality for all the

territories of present-day Greece; moreover, there is usually little synthesis of dif-

ferent kinds of information when it comes to the analysis of the data available.

Although the comments of the late Angeliki Laiou in the first chapter of the

influential volume Les Villages dans l’Empire byzantine, reflect the concern of a

text-nourished scholar, they also reflect a sound truth that most archaeologists

need to bear in mind and take into serious consideration. Laiou argues that

‘archaeological data alone can only give part of the answer to the questions

that are connected with the rise and function of villages, and archaeology on its

own can provide erroneous interpretations, or no interpretations at all’ and

that ‘the importance of documentary evidence remains paramount for historical

3 Rouse 1911, 28.4 Miller 1908, §649, 711.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF LANDSCAPE AND MATERIAL CULTURE 315

interpretation’. 5 However, what the author missed out is that a lot of the informa-

tion at hand about the location, size and economic standing of villages in the

Byzantine and Frankish countryside actually derives from a small number of exca-

vations and surface survey archaeology in areas where textual sources are lacking.

When thinking of the most significant advances in our knowledge of the field

of Late Byzantine or Frankish archaeology of Greece during the last 15 years, one

should not exclude the publication of Peter Lock’s The Franks in the Aegean, and

Peter Lock and Guy Sanders’ The Archaeology of Medieval Greece.6 Both works

mark an important advance and the beginning of a new era in the historical and

archaeological study of Greece during this period. Peter Lock tried to move

away from previous historians’ over-concern with political and military history

and produced an interpretative work, placing the Frankish Aegean in its social and

economic context within the wider Mediterranean world.7 Lock argues that the

Aegean was a transit zone for the products of the East; he also argues for segrega-

tion, as the Franks remained a tiny majority and were determined to protect their

privileged position.8 The situation between the Franks and the Greeks was more

of ‘an encounter between two societies’ than of acculturation.9 This assessment of

co-operation between and co-habitation of the two groups, the Franks and the

Greeks, initiated another research objective related to the socio-cultural history of

the period, the degree of integration and the motives that may have generated

such attitudes.10 The terms Frank and Frankish for aspects of material culture and

the term Frangokratía for the period that lasted from the early 13th to the middle

or late 15th centuries are generic terms applied to populations from western

and northwest Europe who came originally to Greece as crusaders or conquerors,

colonisers or settlers and traders starting with the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The

application of these terms, however, to aspects of material culture does not always

imply the ethnic or other identity of their manufacturers.

On the other hand, one of the most recent re-assessments and reviews of the

archaeology of Late Byzantine – Frankish Greece by Kalopissi-Verti comprises

another important contribution to the archaeological study of the period on the

Greek mainland. 11 The author questions the distinction between conquerors and

5 Laiou 2005, 35.6 Lock 1995; Lock & Sanders 1996.7 Cf. Vionis 2012, 35, for a review of studies of the Frankish Aegean.8 Lock 1995; id. 2006, 391.9 A view already expressed by Jacoby 1973, 873-875; Lock 1995, 266.10 Lock & Sanders 1996; some of the essays published in Lock and Sanders’ edited volume touch upon such aspects of identity and accommodation of the two groups.11 Kalopissi-Verti 2007. This contribution comprises the first essay in the volume of proceedings edited by P. Edbury and S. Kalopissi-Verti, on the basis of a Round Table organised at Nicosia on February 1st, 2005. The aim of the Round Table was to shed light on recent archaeological

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conquered and their cultural osmosis through the examination of several aspects

of material culture in the lordship of Athens and Thebes (1205-1311). Examples of

fortification works and dwellings, visual, artistic and monumental expressions of

religious life, burial customs, as well as coinage and economy are examined in

order to trace the co-existence of Latins and Greco-Byzantines in towns and the

flourishing countryside.

The capture of Constantinople by the Latins of the Fourth Crusade and the

dismemberment of its territory gave the Byzantine Empire a fatal blow. The pre-

vious imperial control and centralised government of Constantinople ‘was replaced

by an array of feudal principalities’.12 The Latin emperor of Constantinople was

not destined to last long, neither would those portions of the Byzantine Empire

which continued to exist, such as the Empire of Nicaea.13 A review of the archae-

ology of this period in Greece remains very complex mainly because of the equally

complex territorial and political history of the area after 1204. Between the middle

14th and middle 15th centuries, much of the southern Aegean remained under

Venetian authority; Thessaly, initially ruled by the Crusaders, was conquered by

the Catalan Grand Company in 1318, while its conquest by the Ottomans in 1393

put an end to a series of power struggles.14 Much of Boeotia and Attica was ruled

successively by the Crusaders, the Catalans, the Navarrese and the Florentines

until 1460; the history of the Peloponnese is characterised by continuous rivalries

between regions under Byzantine authority and the Latin principality of Achaia

until 1430, when the Byzantine despot of the Morea controlled the whole

peninsula, which he held until it fell to the Ottomans in 1460.15 Thus, the terms

‘Late Byzantine’ or ‘Frankish’ and ‘High Middle Ages’ or ‘Late Medieval’ are used

interchangeably throughout this paper, depending on which area and which phase

of the Greek Middle Ages each section is referring to.

This presentation and overview of the major advances in the archaeology of the

High Middle Ages in Greece is divided into five thematic units, each of them

representing a class of material evidence and an interpretative trend: 1) landscapes,

settlement archaeology and economic activity; 2) fortifications and power;

3) domestic architecture and the use of space; 4) artefacts, consumption and

meaning, and 5) religious art and architecture, and identity. This does not

preclude the fact that some categories might overlap; economy, for instance, can

be examined not only through landscape research but also through objects, while

discoveries related to the movements of people, the transmission of culture and the transformation of the visual arts at the time of the Crusades in the Aegean, Cyprus, and the Levantine coast.12 Gregory 2005, 282.13 Haldon 2005, 118-120.14 Haldon 2005, 124.15 Haldon 2005, 124-125.

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identity and social standing are not only concealed in religious art and architec-

ture, but also in fortified structures, domestic architecture and elite objects. An

attempt has been made to group current trends and material categories into

broader themes.

Landscape, settlement archaeology and economic activity

Through a long process of innovations and transformations in archaeological

methods and theory over the five past decades, survey archaeology and excavation

have greatly contributed to the study of Medieval and Post-Medieval landscape

history and settlement formation in different regions of Greece. It appears that

projects of a regional nature, since the mid 1990s, have provided the means to a

better understanding of every single phase of the Greek Middle Ages. Apart from

the systematic field walking, picking-up and recording of artefacts, regional

surface surveys have combined archaeological methodologies with ethnographic

studies, geological survey and geophysical prospection, and allowed the recon-

struction of rural habitation, the density and pattern of settlement, and insights

into land use. It is not a coincidence that following on from the pioneering work

in these eras carried out by the influential Cambridge-Durham Boeotia Project

and the Keos Survey in the 1980s and early 1990s, nearly all interdisciplinary sur-

vey projects published after the late 1990s started paying closer attention to the

‘long’ Medieval period and provided archaeological information and interpreta-

tions based on period subdivisions, such as Middle Byzantine, Frankish and so

on.16 As Athanassopoulos has pointed out, the long-term fluctuation of the settle-

ment patterns of a region, as revealed by regional surveys, provided a rather dif-

ferent story to that told by excavations, and the extant written sources. 17 It has to

be admitted that it remains difficult to actually evaluate the overall results about

habitation in the Late Byzantine – Frankish landscape single-handedly or in a

single format, since survey projects tend to follow sometimes very different meth-

odologies and sampling strategies.18 Survey archaeology concerned with the Greek

Middle Ages has given focus on inhabited space over time in the local rather than

historical context,19 in an attempt to trace and interpret specific fluctuations, such

16 Cf. Bintliff 2000, 38-39, 2012, 381-401, for background information on intensive surface artefact survey and its potential for the reconstruction of Byzantine, Frankish, and Ottoman landscapes.17 Athanassopoulos 2008, 24. Cf. Athanassopoulos 2010, 255-258, for a brief discussion on the impor-tance of documents and the delayed development of material approaches.18 Alcock 1993; Bintliff 2000. It can be said, however, that the interpretations of shifts in settlement density and pattern ‘have been predominantly economic and somewhat generic’, as already argued by Athanassopoulos 2008, 24.19 Veikou 2009, 45.

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as settlement dispersal, population density, agricultural activity and access to the

wider market. Nevertheless, all the aforementioned issues are dependent on sur-

face ceramic scatters, primarily diagnostic, so the lack of Post-Roman ceramic

expertise in a survey team renders the quantitative and qualitative analysis of

ceramic data practically impossible. The Late Byzantine - Frankish period, which

lasted for 250 or 350 years, depending on the region one is examining, is a rather

long era that can obviously be subdivided into shorter time-frames, according to

general trends in landscape activity or settlement formation.

It is generally held that the unprecedented prosperity, economic and demo-

graphic growth of the Middle Byzantine era in urban centres and the rural coun-

tryside (especially in the 11th and 12th centuries) continued during the Frankish

period and throughout the 13th century. The Franks opened up new export ave-

nues and maritime contacts, while the new regime in most cases further favoured

agricultural intensification, industry and trade. Survey archaeology since the early

1990s has revealed a dense network of rural sites, fortifications and fortified struc-

tures that have been associated with population increase. It is interesting to note

that Bintliff and Sbonias have critically examined models that convert surface

ceramic scatters into population figures.20 The fact that an increased amount of

pottery fragments are identified, collected, recorded and dated to the early Frank-

ish period could very well indicate that glazed pottery production became decen-

tralised and that technology advances led to mass production of tablewares, thus,

ceramic serving vessels became affordable for a far larger proportion of the existing

rural population.21

Archaeology and the historical record point towards a second phase of the

Frankish period, starting around the middle 14th century, with the outbreak of

the bubonic plague or the so-called Black Death which ravaged the population of

the Aegean world and the rest of Europe and led to a severe demographic crisis.

Meanwhile, continuous warfare between Byzantines, Franks and the early Otto-

mans contributed to the depopulation of the countryside and the desertion of

fertile lands. This situation is also reflected in the material record; sites of the 12th

and 13th centuries suddenly disappear from the map, while the percentage of rural

settlements seems to drop by the middle 14th century, on the basis of intensive

surface survey work and the finer date-tuning of surface ceramics; see for example

(Figure 1) the development of human activity at a number of villages in the

Byzantine and Frankish countryside of Tanagra.22 The countryside would be

20 Bintliff & Sbonias 1999.21 Cf. Sanders, 2000.22 Vionis 2008, 35-36. None of the sites identified in the region of Tanagra in Boeotia contains diag-nostic tableware types that date between 1350 and 1400.

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repopulated again by invited semi-nomadic Albanian clans, who settled in much

of central and southern Greece by the late 14th century, and again in the 15th.23

Research focussed on the long-term settlement pattern in the Greek countryside

has revealed that the population in the High Middle Ages resided in cities and

villages of varying sizes or in small agglomerated but dispersed settlements; in

other words, the landscape was dominated by nucleated communities located at

regular intervals. The same pattern has been identified in the Peloponnese and

Boeotia,24 where extended families lived in permanent and temporary settlements

and were engaged in pastoral and farming activities in the surrounding lands.

Interestingly, Runnels and Van Andel have argued that nucleated settlements tend

to be associated with economic contraction and subsistence agriculture. 25 Archae-

ological evidence does not always confirm the above statement, especially in cases

of fertile areas such as Frankish Boeotia.26 However it would fit with the picture

in the less fertile Venetian-dominated Aegean islands. Thus in the Cyclades,

despite the highly nucleated nature of permanent settlement due to the concentra-

tion of population in fortified villages, the so-called kastra, semi-permanent instal-

lations, such as farmsteads also appear, dotted across more fertile regions and

sometimes accompanied by family chapels, seeming to reflect an emphasis on

23 Bintliff 2000, 44.24 Cf. Armstrong 2002; Bintliff, 1996, 2000; Gerstel et al. 2003.25 Runnels & Van Andel 1987, 327. Cf. Athanassopoulos 2008.26 Vionis 2008, 34-36.

Figure 1. Percentages of dated pottery from sites in the region of Tanagra (A. Vionis)

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Figure 2. Map of eastern Paros showing recorded Late Medieval sites and rural chapels (A. Vionis)

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agricultural exploitation and intensification (Figure 2).27 Returning to the more

typical nucleated settlement model, in Late Byzantine Macedonia in northern

Greece, historical sources indicate that there also occurred here an expansion into

previously uncultivated lands, in the plains and onto hillsides, with the number

of households increasing between the 12th and 14th centuries.28 The study of

village territories by Laiou in 14th-century Macedonia on the basis of textual infor-

mation has shown that although there are considerable differences among villages,

much of the village territory is described as hilly, wooded, stony, fallow and

uncultivated, revealing a different medieval land-management to that of farming,

such as wood-cutting and stock-breeding.29 A study of medieval settlements in the

northwest Peloponnese by Kourelis has shown that the great number of unforti-

fied settlements surviving on the hills and not in proximity to plains, although

nucleated and self-sufficient, does not imply that they are isolated or hidden; they

are associated with terracing a maximised surface area for grain cultivation, while

settlement location was also convenient for husbandry.30

It is unfortunate that new technologies and scientific applications, such as soil

chemistry survey, that could provide fascinating results about domestic occupation

and industrial or farming activities at Medieval rural sites and in urban areas

without excavation, have not been practiced in Greece outside of the prehistoric

and Greco-Roman periods.31 Pollen analysis, on the other hand, employed by the

Pylos Regional Archaeological Project in the 1990s, has provided interesting results

about olive cultivation between 1290 and 1420. The results have suggested that

olive cultivation doubled during the Frankish era in comparison to the previous

period, while grape pollen appears in the area in abundance for the first time.32

Results of this kind open new windows for observing local production and con-

sumption, and the extent of exploitation of surrounding lands.

In areas where Frankish control was imposed in the early 13th century, the pat-

tern of settlement, as revealed by excavation and survey archaeology, has an inter-

esting story to tell, regarding (a) the formation of new settlements, (b) the reloca-

tion, and (c) the continuous existence of old ones. As has already been observed

in the cases of Euboea and Boeotia33 in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade in

Greece, a major and minor feudal nobility established itself in castles and especially

27 Vionis 2006, 481-484.28 Laiou 2005, 40.29 Laiou 2005, 44.30 Kourelis 2003, 16.31 Cf. Gerrard 2003, 196-201, for a helpful review of new scientific methods and techniques employed for the study of medieval habitation in Britain.32 Zangger et al. 1997.33 Bintliff 2000, 44.

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in towers in or near the long-established towns and villages of the Middle Byzan-

tine period. Those towers, as we shall see below, functioned as residences of the

Frankish feudal nobility or their bailiffs, and as storage centres of agricultural

revenues, and were destined to watch over and control the dependent village and

its taxed inhabitants.34 The first case is excellently illustrated through the exem-

plary excavation of the 14th-15th-century village-site of Panakton (Figure 3), located

between Athens and Thebes. Panakton provides, according to Gerstel and her

co-authors ‘a wealth of material for the study of medieval villages in general’. 35

Excavations revealed that this was a short-lived settlement dependent on agricul-

tural production, with the populations’ humble housing spread below the hilltop,

which was crowned by a feudal tower and held by a foreign landlord. The second

case can be illustrated through the important site of VM4 or Palaiopanagia on the

upper slopes of a rocky hill in the Valley of the Muses in Boeotia. The site, dis-

covered and studied by Bintliff and team-members of the Cambridge-Durham

Boeotia Project, was established in the early 13th century, when its inhabitants

were transferred from the Middle Byzantine village of Askra a kilometre away in

order to construct their houses around the newly-built feudal tower which crowned

the hilltop. 36 The third case is illustrated by the results of the ongoing Ancient

Cities of Boeotia Project in the region of Tanagra, where an existing Middle Byz-

antine settlement around the initially Middle Byzantine church of Ayios Thomas

was taken over by an incoming feudal lord at the beginning of the 13th century;

the church was transformed into a square feudal tower with chapel in the early

14th century, and the village community continued to toil the surrounding land

till the outbreak of the bubonic plague in the middle 14th century.37

Another pioneer study by Sigalos has examined the architectural and archaeo-

logical record throughout present-day Greece from the Middle Byzantine to the

Early Modern era and has identified five main types of settlement. 38 Two of those,

the nucleated and the dispersed, are distributed throughout the country in central

and southern Greece, the Aegean islands and Crete, as well as in parts of northern

Greece, and they survive in present-day Greece since the Late Byzantine period as

the main settlement-types. The nucleated type is usually of a fortified nature and

it is found in regions that formed part of the Latin-controlled Aegean, such as

the Cyclades and Chios. This settlement organisation provided security to the

inhabitants and their produce and allowed the feudal lord to control the locals

34 Cf. Lock 1986, 1996, 1997, for a detailed examination of the characteristics and role of free-stand-ing ‘feudal’ towers in central Greece.35 Gerstel et al. 2003, 149.36 Cf. Bintliff 1996, 2000, 2012.37 Vionis 2008, 30.38 Sigalos 2004a.

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Figure 3. Site plan of Panakton (after Gerstel et al. 2003, fig. 5)

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more effectively.39 Nucleated settlements on the Greek mainland were not planned,

but rather developed naturally, with nucleation defined as a denser concentration

of freestanding domestic structures. The site of Panakton mentioned above,

Geraki in Laconia or settlements in the Mani Peninsula are representative exam-

ples. Loose organisation, on the other hand, is predominant on rural sites on the

mainland. Settlements of this type were not fortified and developed naturally

according to the available space and general topography40 and seem to be the main

settlement type in mainland Greece since the Late Byzantine period. The distinc-

tive characteristics of Middle and Late Byzantine villages and hamlets of this type

are the proximity to a road, to sources of fresh water, and to arable land, consist-

ing of gardens, vineyards and fields in zones or in continuous stretches,41 a picture

comparable to the model of a Byzantine village and its territory proposed by

Ducellier.42 A church is nearly always located at the centre of the Late Byzantine

village or in an important location within the village, providing the focus of the

settlement and structuring its topography.43

The settlement pattern in the Late Medieval countryside and the use of agricul-

tural land around settlements and monuments can also be indentified and explored

by new tools and technologies. GIS is not an unknown tool among archaeologists

working in Greece. Historic Landscape Characterisation however, a new tool with

a GIS-based technique, originally developed in Britain in the 1990s, was very

recently employed in order to analyse agricultural practices and the territorial

fragmentation of the rural landscapes of Late Medieval and Post-Medieval Naxos,

defining several types, such as arable fields, pasture, meadow, woods etc.44 The

experimental examination of terraces and field systems on the island through sat-

ellite images and computer software, in combination with survey archaeology and

published Late Medieval sources concerning field systems and land use, has

revealed the origin and form of pre-modern landscape architecture. The roughly

rectangular units of land in the lowland plains and the upland valleys of the island

must be of Late Medieval date, while the field-system defined by shorter north-

south boundaries, that appear to subdivide the large rectangular units into long

narrow parcels of land, is of Post-Medieval date (Figure 4). The identification of

these practices is also supported by documentary evidence that confirms the exist-

ence and function of a feudal system on the island until the 17th century.45

39 Sigalos 2004a, 55-56.40 Sigalos 2004a, 56.41 Laiou 2005, 39.42 Cf. Ducellier 1986.43 Laiou 2005, 48.44 Crow et al. 2011.45 Kasdagli 1999, 37-39.

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Fortifications and power

Late Medieval castles, fortification walls and other fortified structures have been

the subject of a number of synthetic volumes and specialised essays in recent years.

The renovation, emergency repairs and stone-by-stone recording of a number

of such structures throughout Greece, such as the Catalan fort of Levadia in

Boeotia, the Venetian castle-ports of Methoni and Koroni in the Peloponnese or

several island-kastra in the Cyclades, suggest their architectural significance, their

Figure 4. Historic Landscape Characterisation in the area around Chalki, Naxos (after Crow et al. 2011, fig. 3)

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appreciation as part of Crusader legends and local history, and their incorporation

into the contemporary urban fabric as points of reference.

Late Byzantine – Frankish Greece was dotted with castles, forts and free-stand-

ing towers, echoing the turbulent conditions prevailing at the time. The city itself,

especially during the Middle and Late Byzantine periods, had become a castle,

with its walls defining its urban territory and protecting its civic structures and

functions from the outside world. Despite the political, economic or religious role

of cities, a series of fortification works in the countryside was erected in order to

provide defence and authority over the peasant populations. In the feudal West,

nearly 80-90% of the population lived in the countryside, thus the organisation

of the settlements was dictated by lordship, with the seignorial fortifications as a

focus that ruled over the countryside through its dominating, consolidating

and administrative character.46 Similarly, the Late Medieval countryside in Greece

preserves a considerable distribution of similar defensive structures mostly inter-

preted as serving communications, defence, feudal economics, agricultural prac-

tices, and more recently, power relations between lords and people, ‘saintly’ and

‘evil’, ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. Interestingly, most of these fortified structures and

fortification works in Greece look similar, and therefore, their identification, for

instance, as ‘Frankish’ or ‘Byzantine’, is not always straightforward. It has been

accepted that square keeps are a diagnostic Frankish feature,47 but towers are also

a feature of Middle Byzantine monasteries and may differ from free-standing

feudal towers in Euboea, Boeotia and Attica.48

In an essay by Bakirtzis and Oraiopoulos fortifications in northern Greece have

been grouped into five categories, including cities, castles, forts and towers.49 The

Byzantine polis (ancient city) had become a kastro already in the Late Antique to

Middle Byzantine periods, and literary sources attest to this transformation by

referring to towns as castles.50 The principle of successive lines of defence was

retained in the Late Byzantine period, and the typical layout of a polis-kastro

comprised a citadel, an upper, and a lower town.51 A series of castles surrounding

the wider territory of Thessaloniki (e.g. Platamon, Kitros, Sérvia, Vodená, Veroia,

Yinekókastro, Siderókastro, Serres, Christoópoli, Rendina and Kassándreia) pro-

vided a network of fortified towns and fortresses by controlling key locations and

protecting the rural hinterland.52 Forts in northern Greece, naturally of smaller

46 Duby 1991, 57-59.47 Molin 2001, 218-219.48 Kourelis 2003, 35-36.49 Bakirtzis & Oraiopoulos 2001.50 Cf. Kazhdan 1998; Bakirtzis 2010, 355.51 Bouras 2002, 506-508.52 Bakirtzis and Oraiopoulos 2001, 35-37.

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dimensions than castles, functioned as control points of passages and communica-

tion routes, while towers served as guard posts, landmarks, and storage units of

agricultural revenues. The fort of Pýthio, for example, was founded by John VI

Kantakouzenos (1347-1354) in the 14th century in order to control his landed prop-

erties in the upper Evros river-valley, and comprised two enclosure walls and a

donjon tower, and seems to have served both as a residence and as a last line of

defence.53 Towers in northern Greece are quadrilateral, multi-storey, their entrance

was located on a higher level, and their role was the accommodation of small gar-

risons, and the visual control of passages and storage of agricultural produce, while

monastic towers, such as Mariana and Galatitsa, seem to have played a similar

role.54 Inscriptions commemorating the repair of Late Byzantine city walls and

towers, together with spolia and brickwork in the shape of crosses, placed where

they could be viewed, served an apotropaic role, separating the inside from the

outside world, reinforcing the engagement of the divine in the protection of the

people, and declaring the Christian identity of inhabitants and users.55

The defensive structure of the Late Medieval Peloponnese was not very different

to that of Macedonia, as revealed by another study undertaken by Kontogiannis

regarding the form, size and defensive character of fortifications in Messenia.56 In

the light of the coexistence of the newcomers with the indigenous population, the

general historical conditions prevailing in the Frankish Morea (Peloponnese) and

its geopolitical significance, Late Medieval fortifications have been grouped into

four main categories. The first group includes large fortified city-ports such as

Methoni and Koroni, which were not constructed with the aim of protecting the

local population but in order to accommodate a multicultural community of mer-

chants.57 The second category comprises the mainland walled towns (inferior in

size and provincial in appearance when compared to city-ports). They controlled

the fertile lands of their region and were equipped with the necessary structures to

accommodate and protect their inhabitants.58 This group could be compared to

the aforementioned Late Byzantine peripheral castles of northern Greece, or the

Frankish island-kastra of the Aegean.59 The third group includes a series of minor

forts, as scattered outposts built by western overlords in remote or less fertile lands

(ensuring control of passages), and in the vicinity of farmlands and small agricul-

tural settlements (with their limited size intended to accommodate a minor lord

53 Bakirtzis 2010, 354.54 Cf. Theocharides 1997; Theocharides & Papangelos 1997; Bakirtzis 2010, 354.55 Bakirtzis 2010, 361-363.56 Kontogiannis 2010, 3-29.57 Kontogiannis 2010, 6-8.58 Kontogiannis 2010, 9-17.59 Cf. Vionis 2012.

97583.indb 327 6/02/15 08:48


and a small guard).60 Their appearance and role is paralleled by the forts of

Macedonia and the free-standing Frankish feudal towers of Euboea, Boeotia and

Attica. The fourth group includes isolated towers that were used as outposts and

observation-points; they are circular in plan and were built on the coast and on

hilltops in the rural hinterland, offering a panoramic view of the surrounding

landscape.61 These structures seem to have functioned very much like the so-called

vigles or watch-towers of the same period on some of the Aegean islands.

The notion that the construction of fortifications and towers was solely moti-

vated by military needs and defence was challenged in several studies by Peter

Lock,62 who asserted that the building of free-standing towers in central Greece and

Euboea was rooted in the feudal tradition of the Franks. Ongoing studies within

the framework of the Boeotia Project have been examining the relationship between

towers and rural settlement. 63 The impressive site of Klimmatariá on the shores of

Lake Ylike in Boeotia64 comprises a feudal estate of the Frankish period, with a

series of rooms arranged around a sizeable rectangular courtyard and alongside an

outer court, together with a multi-storey tower in the middle of the west branch of

rooms (Figure 5). Parallels can be drawn from equivalent Crusader sites in the

Levant.65 Nearly all of these towers in central Greece and Euboea seem to have been

associated with a permanent settlement in the vicinity or just below them. They are

located so as to firmly control and exploit the allotted land around them, providing

at the same time accommodation for the local minor lord and storage for feudal

dues, and as markers and symbols of the feudal status of their proprietors.66

On the Venetian-dominated Aegean islands, this was also the time when the

built space radically changed, from undefended and dispersed, to defended and

nucleated. Walled settlements appear on all Cycladic islands and their layout is

directed by the topography. The only historical reference for the building of an

island-kastro according to a plan is the Kastro of Naxos, designed to provide hous-

ing for a colonial minority and function as the administrative centre of the Duchy.

Types of settlement are the spatial manifestation of social structures and one can-

not fix boundaries between social structure and its spatial elements; similarly one

cannot ignore the social and cultural background which the Latins brought with

them from their countries of origin. In the town of Naxos’ plan (as in every plan

of a kastro), the Cathedral and the main tower, the so-called Lord’s residence, are

60 Kontogiannis 2010, 17-24.61 Kontogiannis 2010, 24-27.62 Lock 1986, 1996.63 Cf. Bintliff 2000, 2012.64 Sigalos 2004a, 89-91.65 Cf. Ellenblum 1998.66 Sigalos 2004a, 88.

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located at the notional centre of the settlement, and all the roads lead to these two

basic poles of attraction. The domestic structures themselves within the town are

facing towards the symbols of ecclesiastical and secular authority. It is generally

accepted that the plan of island kastra is the material reflection of the Venetians’

foundation of a political, social and ecclesiastical hierarchy in a foreign land, as

well as of the introduction of values common in the 13th-century West.67

67 Jacoby 1989, 5; Vionis 2003, 195-198.

Figure 5. The Frankish tower-site of Klimataria, Lake Ylike, Boeotia (after Sigalos 2004, fig. 119)

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Although it is true that each area has its own characteristics and peculiarities,

the survey of Late Medieval fortifications throughout Greece points to a hierarchy

of defensive structures and raises the question about a Greek version of the medi-

eval Italian process of incastellamento (walled peasant settlements under direct

lordship control). This landscape phenomenon of Late Medieval Greece is a rather

complex issue which has not yet been resolved. Indeed, it is possible that this

process of castle- and tower-building from the 13th century onwards mirrors sim-

ilar phenomena best documented in Italy a few centuries earlier. It is also true,

however, that kastroktisía or castle-building and the concentration of populations

within them was not an unknown phenomenon to the Byzantines. It may be

more correct then to talk about a second incastellamento process in Greece, start-

ing in the 13th century. Moreover, one has to be cautious when using such termi-

nology, as it is sometimes difficult to gauge with certainty, degrees of feudalism

in Greece comparable to the feudal West, while at the same time, despite their

defensive locations, Late Medieval kastra in Greece were not always defensive in

design and were not always constructed in times of threat.68

Domestic architecture and the use of space

It is true that studies concerned with Late Byzantine domestic architecture in

Greece are very few, yet, they are very innovative and detailed. A larger number

of systematic excavations and architectural surveys are needed in order to establish

a more secure typo-chronology of Late Medieval urban and rural housing and

their socio-economic context. Inspired by archaeological studies of buildings in

northwest Europe,69 in particular focussing on the functional analysis of housing,

its socio-cultural dimension and the mentality of its occupants, certain studies in

Greece, primarily in regions of the Peloponnese, Boeotia and the Cyclades, have

examined the use of domestic space and the social organisation of the household.

The published results of architectural surveys by the University of Minnesota

Morea Project,70 the Cambridge-Durham Boeotia Project71 and the Cyclades

Research Project,72 as well as rescue excavations at Athens and targeted excavations

at Corinth have produced illuminating evidence about rural and urban housing

respectively.

68 Kourelis 2003, 130-131; Vionis 2005, 227.69 Cf. Grenville 1997.70 Cf. Cooper et al. 200271 Cf. Stedman 1996; Sigalos 2004a; Bintliff 2012.72 Cf. Vionis 2012.

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The main rural house-type of the period in lowland zones, which survived

throughout the Late Byzantine, Ottoman and Early Modern period in Greece, is

the so-called makrynari or longhouse (Figure 6), with a linear arrangement of

activities, very much like contemporary housing in the rest of Europe. Long-

houses were divided into two areas, separated by a cross-passage or a false wall in

the middle; people lived at one end, with a main room containing an open hearth;

at the other end of the longhouse was a byre for livestock. In some cases, such as

at Panakton,73 the linear arrangement of activities is on a horizontal level, formed

either in a continuous row of two rooms (one behind the other) or in an L-shaped

type. In other cases, such as at Geraki,74 the hierarchy that dominated spatial

organisation is on a vertical level, formed by the one-and-a-half-storey house,

making use of slope steepness. In all cases, however, rural domestic structures

reveal their agricultural character, with one room or one end of the house reserved

for storage and/or stabling, and the other for the family and its domestic activi-

ties.75 On the other hand, the nucleated character of the Cycladic settlements

directed the construction of single-roomed two-storey houses in rows, the back

wall simultaneously being the fortification wall of the settlement.76 Overall, the

73 Gerstel et al. 2003, 154-155.74 Simatou & Christodoulopoulou 1989-1990, 79-81.75 Sigalos 2004b, 66.76 Vionis 2005.

Figure 6. A longhouse from Thespies, Boeotia (after Stedman 1996, fig. 2)

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evidence for single-roomed houses, whether single-storey, one-and-a-half-storey,

or two-storey, points to their multi-functional character; most of the household

activities would have been carried out within the boundaries imposed by the

house.77 In the case of the longhouse, humans and animals were housed within

the same undivided space, occupying the two opposite ends of the house. In the

case of the two-storey house within defended settlements, there seems to have

been a more distinct separation between clean and dirty areas, with different floors

reserved for different activities. One could suggest that the idea of the single-unit

domestic structure stresses the linear arrangement of household activities and

probably some degree of privacy. Although all household activities took place

under the same roof, there was a notional division of activity zones. The front of

a single-roomed house was occupied by the entrance and a hearth, reserved for

daily use, such as cooking and food consumption; the back end is occupied by a

stone or wooden raised bed-platform and is reserved for sleeping, resting and stor-

ing valuable goods. The back end of the room is the private area, secluded in a

way by the bedding-structure itself and a curtain in front of it. Thus, domestic

privacy in this case is identified in depth.78 As one proceeds through the house

from front to back, as well as from downstairs (the street and the store-room) to

upstairs (the living apartment) one moves along a ‘privacy gradient’ from ‘public’

to more ‘private spaces’.79

Excavated evidence from urban centres of the Mainland (i.e. Corinth, Athens,

Thebes, and Thessaloniki) suggests continuity in economic development from the

Middle Byzantine period, and there are notably limited changes in the urban

layout and domestic architecture.80 The two main types, the courtyard house and

the linear-arranged house remained unchanged, possibly reflecting continuity in

social organisation. The courtyard house, a typically urban form, with multiple

areas for storage, provided a secluded space from the outside world; the centre of

domestic activity, the courtyard itself, was distanced from the outside, providing

additional privacy to the household.81

An interesting picture of Late Byzantine – Frankish secular architecture emerges

when one moves to important administrative centres of the period in Greece.

Previous studies,82 recent large scale restoration work83 and an extensive research

77 Sigalos 2004b, 71.78 Vionis 2005, 243.79 Parker Pearson & Richards 1994, 8.80 Sigalos 2004b, 65.81 Sigalos 2004a, 201.82 Orlandos 1937; Chatzidakis 1948, 2005.83 Cf. Sinos 2009, for the extensive and thorough publication of the restoration works carried out at this important site in the Peloponnese in 1994-2000 and 2001-2008 with the financial support of the

97583.indb 332 6/02/15 08:48


programme carried out on a number of ecclesiastical monuments, together with

the ‘palaces’ and residential buildings of Mistras, have provided important glimpses

into urban architecture and civic life in Late Medieval Greece (Figure 7). Surviving

evidence shows that secular buildings at Mistras consisted mainly of two- and

three-storeys, the ground floor of which was often used as a stable, a kitchen or

storeroom, while the upper storey(s) comprised the living area.84 Though most of

the houses at Mistras are single-roomed (especially those dated from the 13th to the

middle 14th century), large building complexes evolved gradually from the middle

14th century, mostly in the ‘Upper Town’, suggesting that housing of this kind

belonged to the aristocratic families of the city.85 Interestingly, architectural details,

such as the projecting friezes of corbels supporting balconies, Gothic arches and

western decorative features on door- and window-frames (alongside vaults, semi-

circular lintels and construction techniques of the ‘Byzantine’ tradition) signify the

Second and Third Community Support Framework (a project included in the European Regional Programmes of the Peloponnese).84 Cf. Orlandos 1937.85 Sinos 2009, 243-245.

Figure 7. The house of Lascaris, Mistras (after Orlandos 1937, fig. 100)

97583.indb 333 6/02/15 08:48


blending of architectural trends after the introduction of western elements in the

second half of the 14th century, which coincides with the development of the town

by its Despot Manuel Kantakouzenos and his Frankish wife Isabella Lusignan.86

Artefacts, consumption and meaning

Archaeological research into Late Medieval Greece over the past 15 years has

indeed moved forward as regards the study of material objects, such as ceramics,

glass, metal, and textiles; the study of Post-Roman ceramics, in particular, has

happily seen a tremendous development. Apart from the great contribution of

systematic excavations in refining ceramic typo-chronology, such as the exemplary

paradigm of Corinth, researchers involved in excavations and survey archaeology

have brought to bear a landscape approach, which considers the wider environ-

ment of production and consumption. Apart from the Corinth excavations,87 past

and ongoing regional survey projects have played an important role, such as the

Kea Survey,88 the Pylos Regional Archaeological Project,89 the Laconia Survey,90

the Cambridge-Durham Boeotia Project,91 and the Ancient Cities of Boeotia

Project,92 to name just a few. Important publications have appeared over the past

15 years, either in excavation reports, museum catalogues or in separate articles,

such as the publication of the Byzantine and Ottoman finds of the Laconia

Survey,93 the Proceedings of the 7th International Congress on Medieval Ceramics

held in 1999 in Thessaloniki,94 the illustrated catalogue of Byzantine glazed ceram-

ics by Papanikola-Bakirtzis,95 the handbook of Byzantine pottery by Dark96 and

Vroom’s published doctoral thesis.97 Taken together, these publications, along

with studies on other aspects of material culture, help establish not only tech-

nologies and the aesthetic value of objects, but also their social and economic

contexts, and their role in daily life during the Byzantine and Frankish periods.

The period between the late 12th and middle 13th centuries, although rich in

archaeological finds, remains a puzzling period ceramic-wise, in that it is some-

86 Orlandos 1937, 66-67; Sinos 2009, 378.87 Cf. Sanders 1987, 2000, 2003.88 Cherry et al. 1991.89 Davis et al. 1997; Davis 1998.90 Cavanagh et al. 1996.91 Bintliff 1996, 2000.92 Bintliff et al. 2004-2005.93 Armstrong 1996, 125-140.94 Bakirtzis & Papanikola-Bakirtzis 2003.95 Papanikola-Bakirtzis 1999.96 Dark 2001.97 Vroom 2003.

97583.indb 334 6/02/15 08:48


times difficult to date pottery to either phase. Zeuxippus Ware and Incised Sgraffito Ware, for instance, both good-quality classes of earthen tableware, are dated to the

same period. Byzantine ceramics and techniques were distributed throughout the

central and eastern Mediterranean during the 12th and early 13th centuries, while

by the middle 13th century Italian ceramic products, which by that time had

acquired an ‘exotic’ status, started to penetrate the Greek market through Vene-

tian and Genoese merchants, fulfilling the need for expensive ‘exotica’. The large

organised workshops of the 12th and early 13th centuries in Greece gradually

diminished; by the middle of the 13th and until the middle 14th century, with

the contribution of technological innovations, such as the tripod stilt, pottery of

varying quality was produced throughout Greece in small local workshops.98

Glazed earthen tableware started flooding the Late Medieval local and regional

markets, and households of all economic standing were now able to acquire lead-

glazed shiny vessels through regional and interregional trade.99

On the basis of tableware shapes and textual and pictorial evidence, it has been

assumed that Byzantine diners favoured roasted meat, and that it was the Latins

of the Fourth Crusade who introduced into the Frankish States the use of wet heat

and the preparation of meat stews served in glazed small deep bowls, although

recent archaeological research reveals that juicy dishes and meat were not uncom-

mon at the Byzantine dinner table.100 In a pioneer study of shapes and technical

properties of Byzantine and Frankish cooking pots from Corinth, Joyner101 has

demonstrated that the design of the Late Byzantine cooking pots has a taller neck

that was probably an adaptation to retain a greater proportion of liquid, keeping

the stew relatively moist. Meanwhile, faunal analysis at the same site has suggested

that it is possible that the Franks retained their own cooking traditions, but used

locally available food supplies. The Franks must have used their own form of

cooking pot to prepare western-style cuisine, reinforcing their identity in a foreign

land.102

Evidence for glass production and use in Late Byzantine Greece is far more

limited. The activity of the so-called ‘Glass Factories’ of Corinth has been

questioned several times103 but the similarity of Corinthian glass-finds to Italian

glassware of the 13th and 14th centuries is generally accepted. According to Laiou

and Morrisson, glassware was sent from Venice to Rhodes via Crete in the first

half of the 14th century, as it seems that the Byzantine glass industry declined and

98 Papanikola-Bakirtzis 2003.99 Cf. Laiou & Morrisson 2007, 184-187.100 Vionis et al. 2010, 455.101 Joyner 2007, 190.102 Joyner 2007, 205.103 Whitehouse 1991; Williams 2003.

97583.indb 335 6/02/15 08:48


was replaced by imports from Venice.104 Parani, in her study of representations of

glass tableware in Late Medieval art in areas under Venetian rule such as Crete,

has noted that the prunted beaker (Figure 8) occurring in 14th-century Cretan

frescoes is also a common find at Frankish Corinth, and stresses that the occur-

rence of glass in Byzantine religious iconography does not appear to have been

motivated by symbolic considerations.105 Charles Williams states that it is difficult

to quantify the inroads that Frankish culture made on the living habits of the

Byzantine population of the Morea after 1204.106 It is also noted that cultural

change appears to be distinguishable in the field of menus and drinking-habits.

Nicetas Choniates had noted that the Byzantines were not well-acquainted with

the beef-eating Latins and did not know that they served pure and unmixed

wine.107 Further research needs to be done, employing scientific analyses as well,

before we know whether the western habits of drinking undiluted wine or con-

suming large amounts of meat did percolate down to the local population.

Major silk-producing centres of the Middle Byzantine period did not survive

for long after 1204, with the exception of the Theban industry, which seems to

have prospered well into the first half of the 14th century by producing silk cloth

of good quality and by exporting it to western Europe and Egypt.108 According to

Jacoby, ‘the successful operation of the Theban silk industry prompted western

investors to promote its activity after 1204.’109 The presence of the Genoese in

Thebes, on the other hand, is attested only after the Latin conquest, when around

1240 they were acting as entrepreneurs in the city, financing the activity of silk

workshops.110 The 1204 treaty between Genoa and the lord of Athens, Guy I de

La Roche, for the free export of Theban silk textiles, reveals that Genoese mer-

chants financed a number of local silk workshops producing cloth for them, and

probably ordered silk fabrics from other manufacturers.111 A number of references

to Theban silks acquired by important people in Late Medieval Greece and the

West attest to the importance of the silk-economy in Greece: for the knighting

ceremony of Guy II de La Roche, Duke of Athens in 1294, all the high officials

purchased precious garments, mainly of silk, most possibly acquired from Thebes;

in an inventory of 1369 from Avignon, four pieces of red and two pieces of white

104 Laiou & Morrisson 2007, 189.105 Parani 2005, 169-170.106 Williams 2003, 431.107 Van Dieten 1975, 594.108 Laiou & Morrisson 2007, 191.109 Jacoby 2000, 24.110 Jacoby 2004, 223.111 Jacoby 2000, 24.

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Theban samite were recorded; another 14th-century inventory of the French King

Charles V (1364-1380) records a red samite from Thebes.112

Religious art and architecture, and identity

Recent studies of Late Byzantine religious art and architecture in Greece seem to

have found parallels to contemporary approaches to Late Medieval religious art

and architecture in northwest Europe, directed towards the examination of medi-

eval ideologies, socio-cultural identity, self-expression and gender. Church archae-

ologists in other parts of Europe, for example, have invited more detailed consid-

eration of religious practice ‘on the margins’, that is, activity beyond the major

churches and cult centres113 or of the influence of gender on the form and develop-

ment of monastic buildings, as well as on iconography.114 It has also by now been

realised that beyond the religious content of Byzantine art, there is great potential

for using figurative art as an additional source of information on secular culture

112 Jacoby 2000, 26-27.113 Gerrard 2003, 220.114 Cf. Gilchrist 1994.

Figure 8. The Last Supper, wall painting, late 13th - early 14th century: Panagia Kera, Kritsa, Crete (after Lymberopoulou 2007, fig. 18.1)

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during the Middle and Late Byzantine – Frankish periods.115 The published work

of Gerstel,116 Kalopissi-Verti,117 Mouriki118 and Parani119 remain pioneering in the

field of Late Byzantine costume, gender and socio-cultural identity in Greece and

Cyprus, through the study of ecclesiastical architecture and figurative art.

Gerstel, in her study of ‘the Byzantine village church’, has moved away from

monumental urban cult centres, and has emphasised that ‘the Late Byzantine vil-

lage was placed under the protection of saints, who, housed in small chapels,

regulated and protected the extended families that comprised the population of

the settlement’. 120 As I have pointed out earlier, the church formed the spiritual,

architectural and social centre of village communities. Very much as in contem-

porary Greece, these were communal churches functioning as parish churches,

centrally positioned within the settlement; this was the case with Late Byzantine

sites throughout the Peloponnese and central Greece, as has been discussed above

(Figure 9). In the case of family churches or chapels within the nucleated fabric

of defended settlements in the Cyclades, they are found within clusters of houses

that constituted separate neighbourhoods. In other cases, Late Byzantine single-

aisle chapels within arable fields belonging to small landowners must have func-

tioned as boundaries of the village or as markers of property ownership, like the

cases discussed by Nixon in Crete,121 or more recently in the Cyclades.122

It is interesting to note that Late Byzantine village churches located in agricul-

tural and pastoral zones are usually dedicated to saints related to farming and

animal husbandry, such as several churches on Mainland Greece and the Aegean

islands, dedicated to Saint Mamas, Saint Polycarpos and Saint Tryphon. Mean-

while, the iconographic programme of such churches incorporates saints related

to village activities. It has been noted that in the 13th-century church of Saint

Peter and Paul at Kalyvia in Attica, for instance, Saints Mamas and Tryphon,

saints linked with farming, are depicted in the nave, accompanied by the crook

and the lamb.123 It goes without saying that pictorial scenes such as these must

have reflected village-people’s wish to see their lives reflected on the painted walls

of the church.

115 Parani 2007, 181.116 Gerstel 1998, 2001, 2005.117 Kalopissi-Verti 1992, 1994, 2006.118 Mouriki 1995; Mouriki et al. 1995.119 Parani 2003.120 Gerstel 2005, 166.121 Cf. Nixon 2006.122 Crow et al. 2011, 130-132.123 Gerstel 2005, 170.

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Similar conclusions have been drawn through the examination of female

saints124 in Late Byzantine churches in Greece and their meaning for gendered

ritual practices and identity, or through the identification of western saints and

military saints125 in Orthodox churches in Latin-dominated areas of Greece. Ger-

stel concludes that the careful examination of iconographic programs suggests that

female saints were depicted in the space physically occupied by women in the

Byzantine church, in both towns and the countryside, as confirmed by the written

sources.126 The portraits of female saints, their names, size and attire in most cases

reveal a close relationship between the saint and certain female members of the

congregation.

Socio-cultural identity has also been examined under the prism of church donor

portraits (Figure 10). Considering the view expressed by Kalopissi-Verti that Late

Byzantine donor portraits and inscriptions recording their names (either Greek or

Latin) were not an exclusive expression of the elite classes,127 then any donor

124 Gerstel 1998, 89.125 Gerstel 2001, 264-268; Kalopissi-Verti 2007, 9-23.126 Gerstel 1998, 102.127 Kalopissi-Verti 1992, 23-46.

Figure 9. The village-site of Metamorphosis, Messenia, with pottery scatters of the Middle and Late Byzantine periods and the church in the middle of the site (after Davis et al. 1997, fig. 32)

97583.indb 339 6/02/15 08:48


whose portrait would remain to eternity would choose very carefully the way he/

she wished to be represented, and the social or cultural identity he/she would

project. It has been suggested that part of the Greco-Byzantine aristocracy retired

to the countryside, leaving the town to the Latin rulers, thus, explaining the ‘Byz-

antine’ attire of female donor portraits from rural areas, and the ‘western’ attire of

portraits from port-towns, and representing at the same time the identity of the

bearers.128 Pictorial evidence indicates that from the late 14th century onwards

male and female costumes in Latin-dominated regions slowly began to adopt more

elements of western fashion. Donor representations of the period from Rhodes

and Crete suggest that it was mainly the group of merchants and traders (estab-

lished in the harbour-towns of Candia and Rhodes) that followed western fashions

to a greater degree. One of the new trends that made its appearance in Latin-

128 Stancioiu 2009, 187.

Figure 10. Portrait of a male donor, wall painting, first half of the 13th century,

anonymous church, Protoria, Paros (A. Vionis)

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dominated areas was a form of female attire which comprised a single long dress

with narrow sleeves and a rectangular opening on the neck. The emphasis on the

outline of the breasts and the tight appearance of the waist and arms, particularly

in Venetian fashion since the 14th century,129 gave this dress-type a more feminine

character, in sharp contrast to the Byzantine loose forms of female costume.

Moreover, the male attire of the 14th century in Crete and Rhodes borrowed

many Gothic costume fashions (very popular in northern Europe since the

13th century), such as the so-called mi parti or partie coloured, an overcoat deco-

rated with different colours (mainly red and white) in geometric arrangements.130

Concluding remarks

The effect of the Frankish conquest on the architecture, the material culture and

more importantly the visual arts in Greece, has been as popular as difficult to

assess. Although acknowledging these challenges is only part of the story, art

historians have attempted to identify Latin influences on Orthodox monumental

painting and architecture in many regions in Greece and Cyprus, where Latin

influence was more pronounced.131 Most of the published works illustrate the

complexity of this issue of the accommodation of Frankish elements in Byzantine

material culture and the arts and vice versa. The identity of donors, painters, and

viewers remains to be explored in separate timeframes and in different contexts,

as various individuals conveyed messages to unique audiences. It is certain that

interaction between different social groups or between groups of different ‘ethnic’

backgrounds led to a certain degree of cultural exchange and accommodation,

although it has to be stressed that their original or core identities never ceased to

exist and must have remained distinct. An examination of Late Byzantine mural

paintings in the Morea,132 has shown that the representation of equestrian saints

was linked to a long Byzantine tradition, but this manner of representation gave

coherence to a sense of national identity challenged by the Latin occupation.

A.K. VIONIS

University of Cyprus

[email protected]

129 Stuard 2006, 11.130 Spatharakis 2001, 75.131 Cf. Gerstel 2001; Schryver 2008.132 Cf. Gerstel 2001.

97583.indb 341 6/02/15 08:48


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The Archaeology of Landscape and Material Culture in Late Byzantine – Frankish Greece

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