Medieval Greece

Encounters Between Latins, Greeks and Others in the Dodecanese and the Mani

Michael Heslop

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000209273
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

Medieval Greece brings together twelve articles by historian Michael Heslop, showcasing his long-standing interest in the medieval castles of Greece.

Ten of the articles in this volume focus on the Dodecanese islands, mainly Rhodes, at the time of their rule by the Hospitallers during the period 1306–1522. Scholarly and popular interest in the military orders has grown substantially over the last twenty years, but comparatively little has been written about the Hospitaller Dodecanese. What distinguishes this work is the author's use of hitherto unpublished documents from the Hospitaller archives in Malta and his assiduous field work on the island sites discussed. Heslop's work on the Hospitallers on the island of Rhodes has also enabled him to put together an important gazetteer of place-names in the countryside of Rhodes, published here for the first time. The remaining two chapters of the collection summarize ground-breaking detective work to locate Villehardouin's 'lost' castle of Grand Magne in the Mani, and present a wider study of Byzantine fortifications in medieval Greece.

This book will appeal to scholars and students of medieval history, and to all those interested in the history of the Hospitallers. (CS1093).

1
THE SEARCH FOR THE DEFENSIVE SYSTEM OF THE KNIGHTS IN SOUTHERN RHODES

The Knights, by their conquest of Rhodes in 1309/10, inherited a defensive system which had evolved in response to a constant series of attacks in the pre-Hospitaller period. Under Byzantine rule, the inhabitants had been subject to multiple incursions by Arabs, notably in the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries.¹ Later, the Venetians had attacked in 1124² and the Nicaean Greeks in 1233,³ when they had been trying to recover the island from the breakaway Byzantine governor, Leon Gabalas. There had been other assaults, in 1248–50 by the Genoese,⁴ who temporarily occupied at least Rhodes town, and several by the Turks from about 1278 onwards.⁵ Indeed, it has been suggested that the Turks had settled in a large part of the eastern section of the island, though Luttrell has since withdrawn his earlier endorsements of this idea.⁶

1 C.E. Bosworth, ‘Arab Attacks on Rhodes in the Pre-Ottoman Period’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3rd ser., 6.2 (1996), 157–64; A. Savvides, He Byzantine Rhodos kai hoi Mousoulmanoii [Byzantine Rhodes and the Moslems], 2nd edn (Athens, 1995).

2 D.M. Nicol, Byzantium and Venice (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 79–80, cites the sources for this incident.

3 A. Savvides, ‘Ηe byzantine dynasteia ton Gabaladon kai he helleno-italike diamache gia ten Rhodo ton 13ο ai [The Byzantine Gabalas Dynasty and the Greek-Italian Conflict over Rhodes in the Thirteenth Century]’, Byzantina, 12 (1983), 414–17.

4 Idem, ‘Ηe genouatike katalepse tes Rhodou to 1248–1250 m.Ch. [The Genoese Conquest of Rhodes in 1248–1250]’, Parnassos, 32 (1990), 183–99.

5 Idem, ‘Rhodes from the End of the Gabalas Rule to the Conquest by the Hospitallers, AD 1250–1309’, Byzantinuo Domos, 2 (1988), 199–232.

6 A. Luttrell, The Town of Rhodes: 1306–1356 (Rhodes, 2003), p. 65, n. 273, gives references to the earlier suggestions.

Before considering what the Byzantines might have bequeathed to the Knights by way of defence against such threats, however, a topographical map of Rhodes may be helpful in illustrating the issues involved in defending the southern part of the island⁷ (Figure 1.1). The whole of the south-western and western coastlines offered poor anchorage for large vessels until as far north as the good harbour of Kamiros Skala. This was a landing place for corsairs until it was fortified.⁸ It was, nevertheless, possible to beach smaller vessels along the south-western coast, while the indented western shoreline contained a number of potential landing places that would need to be watched in times of danger. The south-eastern coast was easier to land on, but did not provide more than basic shelter south of the safe, well-defended harbour at Lindos. The fertile parts of the south lay on this south-eastern side, particularly around the mouths of its many rivers. There was, however, only one lowland area permitting easy passage between the two coastlines, near the base of the island between Kattavia and Lachania.⁹

Figure 1.1 Topographical map of Rhodes

7 The southern part of the island has been deemed arbitrarily to be that part south of a line drawn from Kamiros Skala on the western to Lindos on the eastern coast. The focus on the south is due to space constraints for this paper and because the area has been relatively neglected by researchers. Indeed, I am not aware of any published study of the Byzantine sites. The sight-line links of the Knights have been largely ignored.

8 It was protected by the construction of the tower and castle of Kastellos. The harbour itself was also fortified: there are the remains of walls at the water’s edge.

9 Most of the transliterations of Greek place-names are taken, when shown, from the 1:100,000 map of Rhodes published by ROAD Editions of Athens with the co-operation of the Hellenic Army Geographical Service (Athens, n.d., c. 2000). Anna-Maria Kasdagli has, however, pointed out to me that some of the names on this map are incorrect, even in Greek. I have, therefore, used her transliterations in such cases.

Given that the island had been under repeated threat, it is likely that the Byzantines had developed a system of civil defence. The documents are not helpful in this respect,¹⁰ so we must rely on archaeology, place-names and ‘walking the ground’¹¹ to suggest the probable arrangements inherited by the Knights in the southern part of the island. As a result of the attacks mentioned earlier, it appears likely that the population periodically abandoned the poorly defended coastal settlements and withdrew to inland fortified positions. Coastal locations, apart from Lindos, were untenable: the watch-towers guarding the coast were designed for vigilance, not refuge. Another paper has reconstructed the Byzantine defensive system in detail; suffice it to say here that the arrangements consisted of a series of fortified positions, including castles, towers, churches and settlements.¹²

10 Only Rhodes and the castles of Filermos and Feraklos, both in the north, and Lindos are mentioned in the sources before 1306. E. Malamut, Les Iles de l’Empire Byzantin (Paris, 1988), pp. 242–3, gives the references.

11 My visits took place over the period 2001–5, and covered the north of the island as well. The purpose of the first visit, in April 2001, was to accompany Peter Lock on his planned survey of the sites of all the Hospitaller fortifications.

12 Given at the 21st International Congress of Byzantine Studies, London, 21–26 August 2006. An abstract of this paper is included in vol. 3 of the proceedings (London, 2006), p. 81.

To my knowledge, there seems to be nothing in the records about any additions and improvements made by the Knights in the south during the fourteenth century. It is known, however, that an earthquake, probably in 1366, levelled many small castles, unfortunately unidentified.¹³ Apart from the lack of written records,¹⁴ it appears that an absence of serious threat from the mainland, except for the first two decades of occupation, meant that there was no great requirement for the Knights to improve their physical defences.¹⁵

13 As noted by Luttrell, Town of Rhodes, p. 261.

14 As chronicled in ibid., pp. 2–3.

15 Though in 1330 the pope could write to the king of France that the Byzantine emperor was threatening Rhodes. The reference is mentioned by E. Zachariadou in Trade and Crusade. Venetian Crete and the Emirates of Menteshe and Aydin 1300–1415 (Venice, 1983), p. 17, n. 66.

The evidence from the limited number of surviving contemporary maps is illuminating. If Figure 1.2, found in a Latin manuscript of Buondelmonti in Paris,¹⁶ is indeed reasonably contemporary to the text published in 1420, we can see several fortified positions identified. Buondelmonti mentions in his text that Apolakkia, Kattavia and Aganea (Lachania) were all fortified towns, while Vasilika was already a ruin.¹⁷ A castle is shown at Siana, while Lindos is illustrated but not named. Houses are shown at Asklipio, but no fortifications, implying perhaps that they had not been built at that time. The text also mentions that two unnamed southern fortresses were in ruins but does not illustrate them; they could be Monolithos and Lardos.

Figure 1.2 Map of Rhodes from a fifteenth-century manuscript

16 Liber Insularum Archipelagi, ed. and tr. into French by E. Legrand, Description des Iles de l’Archipel Grec (Paris, 1897; reissued Amsterdam, 1974). I am indebted to Dr Luttrell for providing me with the information to identify Figure 1.2 as being from BN Rés. Ge. FF 9351 (dated to the fifteenth century).

17 A document contained in Z. Tsirpanlis, Anekdota eggraph gia ten Rhodo kai tis Noties Sporades apo to archeio ton Ioanniton Ippoton [Unpublished Documents Concerning Rhodes and the South-Eastern Aegean Islands from the Archives of the Order of St John], 1: 1421–1453 (Rhodes, 1995), pp. 562–6, doc. 224, reveals that the Knights agreed in 1450 to build a tower at Vasilika to protect a settlement newly established by a group of Halkians. In fact, having been there, I saw no evidence that the commitment was ever kept. Later, however, a tower was built by d’Aubusson at Palatia, a little to the south. Incidentally, the fertile site at Vasilika is now tended by another group of immigrants, this time from Kalimnos.

The situation changed, however, in the mid-fifteenth century, when Rhodes was invaded in 1440 and 1444 by the Mamluks of Egypt.¹⁸ The fall of Constantinople also put renewed pressure on the Knights’ dominions, with an increasing level of attacks from the mainland, particularly on the smaller islands. As a result, by 1475 Grand Master Orsini and his council were forced to promulgate a formal, but possibly theoretical, system of defence in case of attack. In their order of 3 March of that year,¹⁹ women and children were to proceed directly to certain nam...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of maps
• List of tables
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The search for the defensive system of the Knights in Southern Rhodes
• 2 The search for the defensive system of the Knights in the Dodecanese (Part I: Chalki, Symi, Nisyros and Tilos)
• 3 The search for the defensive system of the Knights in the Dodecanese (Part II: Leros, Kalymnos, Kos and Bodrum)
• 4 Hospitaller statecraft in the Aegean: island polity and mainland power?
• 5 The countryside of Rhodes and its defences under the Hospitallers, 1306–1423. Evidence from unpublished documents and the late medieval texts and maps of Cristoforo Buondelmonti
• 6 Defending the frontier: the Hospitallers in Northern Rhodes
• 7 Rhodes 1306–1423: the landscape evidence and Latin-Greek cohabitation
• 8 A Florentine cleric on Rhodes: Bonsignore Bonsignori’s unpublished account of his 1498 visit
• 9 The defences of Middle Byzantium in Greece (seventh–twelfth centuries): the flight to safety in town, countryside and island
• 10 Prelude to a Gazetteer of place-names in the countryside of Rhodes 1306–1423: evidence from unpublished documents
• 11 Villehardouin’s castle of Grand Magne (Megali Maini): a re-assessment of the evidence for its location
• 12 A Gazetteer of place-names in the countryside of Rhodes 1306–1423
• Bibliography
• Index