Venetian Census, Tax and Notarial Records
Principal Investigators:
John Bennet (Oxford)
Siriol Davies (Stirling)
| Map of the 1721 Venetian population
by parish, based on census data published under C. Maltezou's
general editorship. |
Venetian influence in Kythera lasted from the early 13th to the end of
the 18th century. During that period the island was administered in
turn from Crete, the Peloponnese and Corfu, reflecting changes in the
history of the Venetian overseas empire. These changes in orientation
naturally affected the demographic history of the island and are evident,
for example, in settlement names. Detailed records relating to the history
of the island exist both in the Venetian state archives (Archivio di
Stato di Venezia) and the local archives on the island (Historical Archive
of Kythera). For example, published Venetian censuses from the latter
archive, dating from the 18th century, provide a rich source of data
for study of the population profile of the island at the time. By determining
the location on the ground of the parish churches on which the censuses
are based (mapped in a GIS environment by Andrew Bevan), it is possible
to plot the density of population for the different districts of the
island.
| Venetian tax register from the
Kytheran archives. Photography by John Bennet 2003. |
Tax-registers in the local archives list tax-assessments for
individuals and the location of their property, such as fields for grain,
beans, olive-trees, fruit-trees etc. In this way it is possible to trace
the property-holding of individuals and families and plot them spatially.
For the purposes of this project the villages of Mitata, Fratsia and
Strapodi have been selected as detailed case studies, not least because
these three zones fall within the KIP archaeological survey area and
therefore offer the chance to correlate historical information and land
holding structure with the patterning of contemporary (late Venetian)
material culture in the landscape. Extensive notarial archives also
have the potential to reveal the nature of inheritance customs and the
conditions of contracts for the exploitation of property. In Venice,
administrative decisions and dispatches from the island can give a higher
level overview of developments and problems in the governance of the
island.
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