Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/369

 1920 THE VENETIAN REVIVAL IN GREECE 361 difficulties were not peculiar to the Venetians : they likewise faced the Bavarian regency in later days. The Venetian official reports show a desire for conciliation towards the church of the vast mass of the people. For the catholics, outside the Venetian garrison, were few, except at Nauplia and among the Chiote exiles at Modon. Indeed, the former archbishop of Chios was the first catholic archbishop of the Venetian Morea ; and his successor, Monsignor Carlini, whose see was Corinth but who resided at Nauplia, was the only catholic prelate in the whole kingdom ; even as late as 1714 the Morea contained only one catholic bishop. We find, however, the Greeks sending their children to the friars' school to learn Italian and the rudiments of Latin, and there was a scheme for founding a college at Tripolitza. Unfortunately the ministers of religion, as Cornaro epigrammatically wrote, seemed sometimes to be sent to the Morea ' rather as a punish- ment for their own sins than to correct the sins of others '. Materially, the Venetian administration marked an advance, as the foreign occupation of Turkish territory always does, but trade was impeded by the selfish colonial policy of Venice. Upon the Morea, ' a poor country without industries or manu- facture ', the Turks had imposed thirteen taxes, of which five (the haratch, a further local capitation-tax, called spenza, the duty on horses' shoes, the tax on absentee landlords, and the burden of providing and transporting food for the army at half- price) fell upon the Christians alone, while the others (such as the tithe and the taxes on animals) were common both to them and the Turks. Thus, out of a total of 1,699,000 reals, the Christians paid 1,350,300, besides what was illegally extorted from them. The Venetians raised their revenue from tithes of all agricultural produce, taxes on wine, spirits, oil, and tobacco, the usual Italian system of a salt monopoly, customs dues, and the Crown lands. Careful management and increased prosperity increased the revenue, only 280,000 reals in 1689, to 500,501 in 1711. The farming of the tithes was entrusted to the communes, but the Mainates refused to pay tithes, con- senting, however, to pay, although reluctantly, a fixed tribute called mactii. The salt monopoly was a hardship, because, although the price was low, a peasant living near the chief salt-pans at Thermisi was not allowed to buy his salt on the spot but had to make a long journey to some distant magazine. Agriculture improved after the peace of Carlovitz and the fortifica- tion of Nauplia, when it became clear that Venice intended to stay and security of tenure was thus assured. But the customs dues yielded little, because the republic forbade the creation of industries likely to compete with those of Venice, and compelled the Moreotes to send every article to that city. English merchants, therefore, found it cheaper to trade with Turkey, and the