|
|
Byzantine period Church construction activity in the 9th century AD provides evidence of a flourishing economy on the island before its eventual abandonment sometime in the second half of the ninth century as a consequence of Arab raids. 12th c. Emigration and the exactions of the Byzantine officials completed the tales of Michael Choniates in the late 12th century. In 1198, he addressed a memorial to the Emperor Alexios Komnenos III, on behalf of the Athenians, from which we learn that the city was free from the jurisdiction of the provincial governor, who resided at Thebes and who was not even allowed to enter the city, which like Patras and Monemvasia was governed by its own άρχοντες. Piracy Benedict of Peterborough gives a graphic account of Greece, as it was in 1191, that many of the islands were uninhabited from fear of pirates and that others were their chosen lairs. The islands of AEGINA, Salamis and Makronesos were strongholds of corsairs. They injured the property of the Athenian Church and dangerously wounded the nephew of Michael Choniates, who found it almost impossible to collect the ecclesiastical revenues of AEGINA. Most of the Aeginetan population had fled therefore, while those who remained had fraternized with the pirates. At the time of the Latin conquest most Greece was still nominally under the authority of the Byzantine Emperor. Continental Greece, from the Isthmus to the river Peneios in the north, and to Aetolia in the west, composed the «Θέμα Ελλάδος», which thus included Attica, Boeotia, Phokis, Lokris, part of Thessaly and the islands of Euboea and AEGINA. This Theme was at the time administrated together with the Theme of Peloponnese by the same official. The Franks and Venetians after 1204 Venetians took all the best harbors and markets in the Levant: The Ionian Islands: Corfu, Cephalonia, Zante, Leukas Oreos (north) and to the South, Karystos AEGINA, Salamis and the province of Sunium with the Cyclades Crete Aegina and its external history All the commercial privileges, which they had enjoyed in the time of the Byzantine Empire should be continued to them. Burgundian Athens embraced Attica, Boeotia, the Megarid, the ancient Opuntian Lokris and the fortresses of Nauplia and Argos and at least 4 ports ( Piraeus, Nauplia, Atalante, Livadostro ( Corinth )). They did a little amateur piracy. Thebes was the capital. Athens, Thebes, Peloponnese, Euboea In 1225 Othon de la Roche departed for Burgundy, leaving his nephew Guy as Duke. For 50 years, Athens enjoyed peace, till a fratricidal war between Guillaume de Villeardouin (Prince of Achaia) and the great Barons of Euboea involved Guy, who took the side of the Barons. He became regent of Achaia after the end of it. Guillaume de Villeardouin was captured by the Byzantines and when he was freed, he was accepted by the Duke of Athens in Thebes. There the Treaty of Thebes was signed between the Prince of Achaia, Venice and the Triarchs. William recognized Guglielmo da Verona, Narzotto dale Carceri and Grapella as Triarchs and they in turn recognized him as their suzerain and promised to destroy the Castle of Negroponte. Venice engaged to cancel all her fiefs by her Bailie since the death of Carintana. When the Latin Empire of Constantinople fell, the Emperor Baldwin II spend time in the Duchy of Athens. Othon de Cicon, Lord of Karystos and AEGINA came to attend him along with other lords. He had played so active a part in the Euboean war and had lent him 5000 Hyperpera in his sore need. Baldwin liquidated his dept to the baron of Karystos with an arm of St. John the Baptist, which the pious Othon subsequently presented to the Burgundian Abbey of Citeaux. John (son of Guy) got involved in the war of Thessaly and Constantinople. He helped the Sevastokrator of Thessaly Ioannes I` Angelos against Emperor Michael VIII and he wan the imperial army. As a reward he took Ioannes’ daughter, Helena, as a bride for his younger brother William and he extended his influence as far as north as Thessaly. At a battle at Negroponte he was caught prisoner by the Greeks and was carried to Constantinople. Michael took ransom. A year later (1280) he died. William (Guy’s brother) reigned the next 7 years as the leading figure of Frankish Greece. [The Angevin Kings of Naples had become overlords of Achaia by the treaty of Viterbo.] He spent money on the defense of Peloponnese and Euboea. Helena Angelina (William’s Greek wife) left to rule after William’s death. She married his brother-in-law Hugh de Brienne. Helena’s son Guy II, at the ceremony of his coming of age and becoming Duke of Athens (1294), made Bonifate of Verona a knight and as a reward for his service, he gave him 13 castles on the mainland and Salamis (to bring him in revenue 50.000 sols ) and he bestowed the hand of Agnes de Cicon (daughter of Othon de Cicon), cousin of the Duke of Athens, lady of Euboea, Karystos (was at the time in the hands of Greeks) and AEGINA. Attica now for the first time supplies Euboea with corn. Guy II died in 1308. Walter de Brienne (Count of Lecce ) became the new Duke. He thought he might use the coming Catalans against the Duke of Thessaly (Ioannes II`), who made alliance with the Despot of Epeiros and the Emperor. The Catalans won but at the end turned against their employer and occupied the regions from Thessaly to Athens (1311). The only ones that survived were 4: Boniface of Verona, Roger Deslaur, the eldest son of the Duke of Naxos and Jean de Maisy ( άρχοντας of Euboea). The Catalans in Aegina (1311-1451) The Catalan company annexed to Attica and Boeotia the Duchy of Neopatras, including part of Thessaly, while Catalan lords held the castles of Salona and Karystos and the island of AEGINA. The Company needed a leader and they offered the post to Boniface, but he refused. Then they turned to Roger Deslaur, who accepted for a while. King Frederick II of Sicily sent as their Duke his (bastard) son Manfred Fadrigo. He was among the Principal Catalans in 1335 and he died in 1338 leaving castles to his sons: His second son, Don Jaime, succeeded his elder brother (or cousin? ) Don Pedro in his estates, held for a time the island of AEGINA – cause the people of the island rebelled against him - and became later on vicar-general of the Company. Yet another son, Bonifacio, inherited Karystos and Lamia and received from Don Jaime, with certain reservations, Aegina, thereby reuniting the old possessions of his namesake and grandfather, Bonifacio da Verona. [The island of Salamis seems to have been subdued by the Greeks and paid taxes to the Byzantine governor of Monemvasia.] dministration The feudal system continued to exist, but not anymore under the Assizes, but under the Customs of Barcelona. And the official common language was now Catalan and not French. Fiefs of the Duchies of Athens and Neopatras (over the last years) Κομητεία Δημητριάδος Μαρκιονεία Βοδονίτσης Κομητεία Σαλώνων Count Ludwig Fadrique (1365-1381) was master of Lidoriki and Zetouni and later of Siderokastron (Delphoi) and Aegina. Αυθεντεία Σιδηροκάστρου Stefan Melissenos (1318-1333) => Othon de Novelles, marshal of the Duke, husband of Stefan’s sister => Count Ludwig Fadrique (1365-1381) => Maria Fadrique Cantacouzena (1382-1384?) Αυθεντεία Αιγίνης Αυθεντεία Στειρίου (Φωκίδα) Αυθεντείαι Καρδίτσης και Αταλάντης Αυθεντεία Καπραίνης (Χαιρώνεια) Αυθεντεία Estanyol Chief-officials = vicar-general , marshal in Thebes. Always chosen from the ranks of the Company and particularly from the house of de Novelles since 1363. Soon both offices were represented by one man, beginning at 1368 with Roger de Lluria. They minted no coins and they had no ducal Aula. Each city and district – on the example of Sicily - had its own local governor (veguer, castellano, capitan), whose term of office was fixed at 3 years and who was nominated by the Duke, the vicar or the local representatives. The principal towns and villages were represented by the sindici, which had their own councils and officers. Judges and notaries were elected for life or even as inherited offices. The Catalan state was declining under the Turkish and the Venetian (of Negroponte) threats; and also a new threat by Nerio Acciajuoli, Baron of Corinth. Frederick II sent his son Don Alfonso Fadrique as “President of the fortunate army of Franks in the Duchy of Athens. He married Marulla of Euboea, the heiress of Boniface and so received back everything that Guy II had given to her father. The Venetians renewed their truce with the Catalans. In 1355, he became also King of Sicily by the title of Frederick III. Frederick III dies in 1377. The Navarrese Company makes its appearance till the early 1380s. Problems with people of Athens and Salona wanting independence. Livadia, - always a privileged town in the Catalan period, - received confirmation of its rights by Pedro IV (king of Aragon and new Duke of Athens) and became the seat of the Order of St. George in Greece, an honor due to the fact that the head of the saint was then preserved there. In 1380, Thebes and Livadia were still in the hands of the Navarrese. Don Louis Fadrique begged the king to bestow him and his heirs the dignity of Counts of Malta, to confirm to him the castle of Siderokastron, the island of AEGINA and any castles, which he might be able to recover from the Navarrese and their allies before the arrival of the new vicar-general. The king, conscious to the Count of Salona’s services, granted all these requests and received the envoy’s homage. Then he notified his subjects his intention to send Rocaberti to govern them. Rocaberti arrived in Athens in autumn of 1380. Louis Fadrique and Galcerán de Peralta handed over their office to him. His instructions were: to establish friendly relations with all the neighbouring potentates to grant a general amnesty in his master’s name to all the inhabitants of the duchies to reward those who had been conspicuous of their loyalty to the King to restore to the rebel branch of the Fadrique clan all the castles and goods which they had forfeited. Among these was the classic island of AEGINA, which thus came to hands of Boniface’s son, John. to grant exemption from taxes for 2 years to all Greeks and Albanians who would come and settle in the depleted duchies. He wanted to cover the gaps in the population cause of the invasion of the Navarrese Company. At the request of the people of Livadia, he established in their town, where the head of St. George was preserved, a branch of the Order of that Saint. He privately ordered Rocaberti to bring the relic of the Saint to Spain, an order never executed. Caopena in Aegina The Catalan company disappeared from the face of Attica, while 2 branches of the Fadrique family lingered on for a time, the one at Salona, the other at AEGINA, where we find their connections, the family of Caopena, ruling till 1451. From John Fadrique, it passed, - presumably by the marriage of his daughter, - to the family of Caopena, then settled at Nauplia, whose name undoubtedly points to a Catalan origin. The Catalans conveyed the head of St. George and thence the Venetians found it in AEGINA when they became possessed of the island and transported it to Venice, - to the church of St. Giorgio Maggiore, - in 1462. In 1425, Alioto Caopena, at that time ruler of AEGINA, placed himself with treaty under the protection of Venice in order to escape the danger of a Turkish raid. The island must then have been fruitful, for one of the conditions under which Venice accorded him her protection, was that he should supply corn her colonies. He agreed to surrender the island to Venice if his family became extinct. Antonio Acciajuoli was against the treaty for one of his adopted daughters had married the future lord of AEGINA, Antonello Caopena. Venetians in Aegina (1451-1537) In 1451, AEGINA became Venetian. The islanders welcomed the Venetian rule; the claims of Antonello’ s uncle Arnà, who had lands in Argolis, were satisfied by a pension. A Venetian governor (rettore) was appointed, who was dependant on the authorities of Nauplia. After Arnà’ s death, his son Alioto renewed his claim to the island but was told that the republic was firmly resolved to keep it. He and his family were pensioned and one of them aided in the defence of AEGINA against the Turks, in 1537, was captured with his family and died in a Turkish dungeon. Ιn 1463 came the Turco-Venetian war, which was destined to cost the Venetians: AEGINA, Myconos, the Northern Sporades and their colonies in Morea. Peace was concluded in 1479. Venice still retained: Lepanto, Nauplia, Monemvasia, Coron, Modon, Navarino, Northern Sporades, Crete, Myconos and Tenos. AEGINA remained subject of Nauplia. Administration AEGINA obtained money for her defences by the unwilling sacrifice of her cherished relic, the head of St. George, which had been carried there from Livadia by the Catalans. In 1462, the Venetian Senate ordered the relic to be removed to St. Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. On 12th November, it was transported from AEGINA, by Vettore Cappello, the famous Venetian commander. The Senate gave the Aeginetans 100 ducats apiece towards fortifying the island. In 1519, the government was reformed. The system of having 2 rectors was found to lead in frequent quarrels and the republic thenceforth sent out a single official styled Bailie and Captain, assisted by 2 councilors, who performed the duties of camerlengo by turns. The Bailie’ s authority extended over the rector of AEGINA, whereas Kastri (opposite Hydra) had been granted to 2 families, the Palaiologoi and the Alberti. A democratic wave passed over the colony. Society at Nauplia was divided into 3 classes: nobles, citizens and plebeians; and it had been the ancient usage that the nobles alone should hold the much-coveted local offices, such as the judge of the inferior court ad inspector of weights and measures. The populace now demanded its share and the Home Government ordered that at least one of the 3 inspectors should be a man of the people. AEGINA had always been exposed to the raids of the corsairs and was cursed with oppressive governors during these last 30 years of Venetian rule. Venetian nobles weren’t willing to go to this island. In 1533, 3 rectors of AEGINA were punished for their acts of injustice and we have a graphic account of the reception given by the Aeginetans to the captain of Nauplia, who came to hold and enquiry into the administration of these delinquents. [Vid. Inscription over the entrance of St. George the Catholic in Paliachora.] The rectors had spurned their ancient right to elect islander to keep one key of the money-chest. They had also threatened to leave the island in a body with the commissioner, unless the captain avenged their wrongs. In order to spare the pockets of the community, it was ordered that appeals from the governor’ s decision should lie to Crete, instead of Venice. The republic should pay a bakshish to the Turkish governor of the Morea and to the Voevode who was stationed at the frontier of Thermisi (opposite Hydra). The fortifications too, were allowed to fall into despair and were inadequately guarded. 16th Century After the fall of the Duchy of Athens and the principality of Achaia, the only Latin possessions left on the mainland of Greece were the papal city of Monemvasia, the fortress of Vonitsa, the Messenian stations Coron and Modon, Navarino, the castles of Argos and Nauplia, to which the island of AEGINA was subordinate, Lepanto and Pteleon. In 1502/3, the new peace left Venice with nothing but Cephalonia, Monemvasia and Nauplia, with their appurtenances in the Morea. And against the sack of Megara, she had to set the temporary capture of the castle of AEGINA by Kemal Reis and the carrying off of 2000 Aeginetans. This treaty was renewed in 1513 and 1521. All the supplies of corn of Nauplia and Monemvasia had now to be imported from the Turkish possessions, while corsairs rendered dangerous all traffic by sea. In 1537, Suleyman the Magnificent declared war upon Venice and his admiral Khairedin Barbarossa spread fire and sword upon the Ionian Islands and in October fell upon the island of AEGINA. On the 4th day Palaiochora fell, but the church of St George (Latin church) was spared. He massacred all the adult male population and took away 6000 women and children as slaves. So complete was the destruction of the Aeginetans, that when a French admiral, Baron de Blancard, touched the island soon afterwards, he found it devoid of inhabitants. There, as usual, an Albanian immigration replenished, at least to some extent, the devastated sites, but AEGINA couldn’t recover its former prosperity. Thence Barbarossa sailed to Naxos, whence he carried off an immense booty, compelling the Duke of Naxos to purchase his further independence by a tribute of 5000 ducats. With the peace of 1540, Venice ceded Nauplia and Monemvasia. For nearly 150 years after, Venice did not own an inch of soil on the mainland of Greece, except the Ionian dependencies of Parga and Butrinto, but of her insular dominions Cyprus, Crete, Tenos and 6 Ionian islands still remained. Ottoman Turks (1540-1687) 1st desolation of the island by Morosini (1654) 2nd desolation of the island by Morosini and occupation of Aegina (1687). Siege of Athens (1688) and plague => escape of the Athenians to Aegina. The Venetian revival (1687-1715) In 1684, the outbreak of war between Venice and the Ottoman Empire led to the temporary re-conquest of a large part of the country by the soldiers of the West and the reappearance of the lion of St. Mark in the South of Greece. Occupation of Attica by Morosini In 1687 the Venetian army arrived in Piraeus and took command of Attica. The number of the Athenians at that time exceeded 6000, the Albanians from the villages of Attica excluded, and whilst in 1674 the population of Aegina did not seem to exceed 3000 inhabitants, 2/3 of which were women. The Aeginetans had been led to seediness to pay their taxes. The most significant plague epidemic though began in Attica in 1688, an occasion that caused the massive migration of all the Athenians toward south; most of them settled in Aegina. In 1693 Morosini resumed the command, but his only acts were to refortify the castle of AEGINA, which he had demolished during the Cretan war in 1655, the cost of upkeep being paid, as long as the war lasted, by the Athenian, and to place it and Salamis under Malipiero as Governor. This led the Athenians to send him a request for the renewal of Venetian protection and an offer of an annual tribute. He died in 1694 and Zeno was appointed at his place. In 1699, thanks to the English mediation, the war ended with the peace of Carlovitz by which Venice retained possession of the 7 Ionian islands, Butrinto and Parga, Morea, Spinalonga and Suda, Tenos, Santa Maura and AEGINA and ceased to pay a tribute for Zante, but restored to Sultan Lepanto. The burden of having to contribute to the maintenance of Cerigo and AEGINA, both united administratively with the Morea since the peace, the peninsula not only paid all the expenses of administration, but furnished a substantial balance to the naval defence of Venice, in which it was directly interested. Ottoman Turks (1715-1770) Russians (1770-1772) Ottoman Turks (1772-1821) After the Greek revolution of 1821, in the year 1828 Aegina becomes for 2 years the first capital of the mew Greek State, under the Governor John Capodistria(Ioannes Kapodistrias).
Bibliography
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org"
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
