Greece, the Hidden Centuries: Turkish Rule From the Fall of Constantinople to Greek Independence by David Brewer Read Free Book Online Page B

islands became tribute-paying vassals of the Sultan were not onerous. Possession of the island remained with its ruler, and would pass to his heirs. There would be no devshirme. Islanders could trade with the Turks, and if necessary obtain provisions that the bey of neighbouring Évia would be ordered to supply. If an islander was captured by a Turkish ship he would be set free. The only obligations were that any refugee Turk should be handed over, and that the annual tribute should be paid punctually. For both Náxos and Ándhros, the two largest islands, the tribute amount was 6,000 ducats, about the same as for Chíos. The Sultan’s firman setting out these terms was benign in tone: ‘I wish absolutely that nobody should cause any trouble to the inhabitants of this island, nor take anything from them by force; that none of the islanders should be taken as janissaries; and that no Turk, whoever he is, should dare to offer them the least insult.’ 11
    The status of the main islands as tribute-paying vassals of the Sultan was only temporary, and by 1617 all were under direct Turkish rule with the head of the Turkish navy, the kapitan pasha, as their overlord. The kapitan pasha appointed as governor of the islands a bey, usually absentee, who in turn appointed to act for him a local representative, often Christian rather than Muslim. This direct Turkish rule brought a number of advantages. The islanders were specifically given the right to take complaints to Constantinople, whereas in the past they had to go to Venice, which was three times as distant. Turkish taxation was based on a detailed census rather than on than the previous, often arbitrary, basis. The Catholic Church was already in decline on most of the islands, and the last Duke of Náxos, Giovanni IV, complained about the riffraffof mendicant monks and Italian adventurers whom Rome sent out as bishops. The Catholics now declined still further; there were 26 Catholic clergy on Náxos in 1539, but by 1600 only nine. The Greek Orthodox community by contrast became stronger. The Orthodox churches took back their possessions, which had previously been taken by the Catholics. Many Catholics converted to Orthodoxy apparently without religious scruples; perhaps this step was taken because the Turks were less suspicious of those who, as Orthodox, were subject to the Turks’ agent the patriarch than of those who, as Catholics, had allegiance to the Turks’ enemy the Pope. No mosques were built in the Cyclades. Though the islanders’ privileges were not quite as great as those for Chíos, Turkish rule was relatively benign.
    With the acquisition of Chíos and the Cyclades the Turkish navy became dominant in the eastern Mediterranean, facing only two threats. One was from piracy, and the other was from joint action by the fleets of Europe if such a combination could be put together. In 1570 the powers of Europe did agree on joint action, and Turkish naval dominance received a sharp reverse at the battle of Lepanto.

 
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    Mainland Greece and Town Life
     
    T he 100 years from roughly 1550 to 1650 is perhaps the most opaque period of Greece’s hidden centuries. We know little of the life of the people from the Greeks themselves. They did not write letters or keep diaries, and the only glimpses we get of their lives are from surviving popular songs and from the oral tradition, which is notoriously unreliable on facts though often illuminating on sentiments. Greek Church records are mainly concerned with the activities of the higher clergy and with monasteries, and tell us little of ordinary life. Apart from the useful population censuses, Turkish documents are largely inaccessible. Until recently western scholars have been refused access to them, 1 and even those who know Turkish and have been able to study them have had to cope with the unfamiliar high formal language in which they are written.
    Also by the beginning of the seventeenth century the Italians had gone