Pylos Regional Archaeological Project, Part VI: administration and settlement in Venetian Navarino

Hesperia, Wntr, 2004 by Siriol Davis

An analysis of property records (discussed further below) suggests that the tithe-farmers did not necessarily hold property in the villages where they farmed the tithe. From the group of people listed above, I have found two occasions when the tithe-farmer had formerly rented property in the village concerned. Michiel Sanudo and Cristo Gianacopullo had rented land or vines in Rustan Aga and Mususta, respectively, prior to 1695. (115) The fact that they later farmed the tithe in these villages seems to indicate a long-term interest there.

The tithe-farmers for Cavallaria, Ligudista, and even Filiatra in Arcadia were expected to take their tithe to Modon, a procedure that the provveditore of Arcadia complained was not justified. (116) It was presumably burdensome for the tax-farmer and deprived Arcadia of grain supplies. Some other villages in the territories of Arcadia and Fanari contributed their tithe to the munitions of New Navarino. (117)

Auctions of tithe contracts were always the focus of tension and problems. In June 1698 the provveditore of Arcadia complained about the impossibility of finalizing the tithe contracts on account of malicious and damaging collusion to keep the values down; he forbade threshing of grain and collecting of silk cocoons until the contracts had been settled. (118) The problem of delaying this process meant that villagers sometimes started the threshing before the contract had been finalized, as they claimed the grain would have spoiled if left any longer. This, in turn, had a detrimental effect on the offers that could be expected at auction, as the chances of hiding the real quantity of the harvest were greater after the threshing. (119) The tax-farmer always preferred to be present at the threshing floor to ensure that there were no opportunities for fraud on the part of the cultivators. (120)

A policy change in 1700 encouraged the comuni to sign their own contracts, rather than leaving collection of the tithe to private tax-farmers. The provveditore of Arcadia hoped in 1700 to get the villages to take responsibility for their own tithe, for payments were much easier to exact from a comune than an individual, given the enormous problem of unpaid debts:

   Se mi nascera l'incontro d'appoggiarle a vecchiardi, et habitanti
   delle ville sara maggiormente cautellata la cassa publica, mentre
   piu esigibile sara il pagamento da un commune, che da un
   particolare, essendo ben notta alla maturita di V.E. il numero
   de debitori, che tiene la camera, parte esigibili e parte
   inesigibili. (121)

   If I get the opportunity to assign it to the elders and inhabitants
   of the villages, the public purse will be much better secured, since
   payment will be easier to exact from a comune than from an
   individual, your excellency being well aware of the number of debts
   to the treasury, some of which are recoverable and others not.

It was not always possible, however, to persuade the village elders to take on such debts. Antonio Nani (Provveditore Generale in Morea 1703-1705) wrote severely to the provveditore of Messenia concerning complaints he had had from people of Caritena about the tithe being imposed on them without their consent; he said it was extremely important that the population did not see themselves forcibly subjected to a burden that should only have been assumed voluntarily. (122) However rapacious the tax-farmers may have been, it appears that many villagers preferred to pay them than be directly responsible to the authorities for payment of their own and their fellow villagers' tithe contributions, a system that would have required them to transport grain to the munitions. I do not have any evidence for villages signing their own contracts in the territory of Navarino. (123)