Prisons and incarceration in fourteenth-century Venetian Crete

Though the evolution of prisons and the prison system in medieval Europe is a well-developed field in the history of law, little attention has been paid to prisons and incarceration on the frontiers of Latin Christendom. The present study makes use of archival and literary sources in order to examine how prisons functioned in Venice's most important colony, the island of Crete. As there has been no previous study of prisons and incarceration in medieval Greece, the article's first aim is to establish some basic facts about the prisons of Crete, such as their locations, their organization and their system of administration. More importantly, however, the study investigates the role that incarceration played in the legal system of the Venetian colony and attempts to set this role within the context of the juridical developments of the Late Middle Ages. Of particular interest is the question of how closely the legal system of the Venetian colony followed the judicial practice of the metropolis and whether it was influenced by the pre-existing legal institutions of Byzantium. Finally, the study also examines how the jurisprudence of the colonial regime dealt with offenders of different ethnic background and legal status.     

Identity and socio-economic mobility in Venetian Crete: the evolution of a citizen family (sixteenth century)

This study focuses on the socio-economic dynamics in Crete under Venetian rule, particularly in the sixteenth century, a critical period for the power of the Republic of Venice in the eastern Mediterranean. There is an attempt to approach these processes by examining the evolution of a Cretan family named Episcopopulo, which originated from the middle social stratum, the so-called cittadini (citizens). The essay tries, after outlining the socio-political characteristics of the intermediate social group, to illuminate aspects of the history of this family, who strove to find its way in an environment marked by fermentations and changes in the political, financial, ideological and social field. The study, among other things, examines the various professional activities of the family members and the practices they utilized to achieve a decisive improvement in their financial status. It also highlights the strategies they employed to their rise in the social hierarchy, as well as their persistent efforts, after acquiring a title of nobility, to retain and increase their wealth and to enhance their role in the public sphere.