How Columbus and European Colonialism learned their dark art in the Levant

European Colonialism doesn’t begin with Colombus or 1492. The 1st people to be colonised by Europeans were other Europeans. The Frankokratia left a swath of merchant colonies across the Eastern Mediterranean which are the very model of post-Colombian colony.

Frankokratia was the period following 4th Crusade (1204) when the Morea & Greek islands came under Latin control. The model was usually for a wealthy Genoese or Venetian family to control an island or archipelago, including the Sanudi on Naxos, the Gattilusi on Lesbos & the Giustiniani on Chios.

The Latin faith was introduced by the new overlords, to little enthusiasm from the locals. Pragmatically, the Latin rulers tolerated the Greek faith but gave it no legal sanction. Byzantine landowners (archons) submitted to the Frankish invaders & kept control over their paroikoi. Essentially a small colonial topsoil was added to the existing social strata.

The motive for maintaining these colonies was broadly the same as later colonialism: commercial exploitation & as strategic checks on rival powers. Alum, as a commodity, was to the 15th century what oil was to the 20th. The main source (prior to 1461) was Genoese-held Phocaea. In 1346 a chartered company (Maona) was setup to exploit Chios & Phocaea. The mineral & taxation rights were sold by the Genoese Republic to the Maona of Chios & Phocaea. The company employed its own troops & ran Chios for 220yrs. Similar Maona existed on Cyprus (1373) & Lesbos.



The Maona can be seen as a blueprint for the East India Company of the C17th. Another Genoese institution that foreshadowed the EIC was the Bank of St George. Established in 1407, it was given the charter to run Genoa’s 5 colonies in the Crimea (collectively, Gazaria), from 1453

Gazaria provides the darkest echo of future colonialism, Caffa being a hub of slave trading. Medieval slavery was domestic (mostly female) slaves rather than the agricultural workers of the African trade. East Europeans & Central Asians were the victims.

Most were sold into the Muslim world where demand was higher but 1000’s went to Italy. Petrarch lamented ‘Whereas huge shipments of grain used to arrive by ship annually in this city, now they arrive laden with slaves, sold by their wretched families to alleviate their hunger.’

Religion rather than race was used to excuse slavery. It was always a contentious subject. Was it only wrong to sell Christians to Muslims? What of non-Latin Christians? Pope Martin V excommunicated the merchants of Kaffa in 1425 for dealing in Christian flesh but nothing changed

In 1431 Genoa signed a treaty with the Mamluk Sultan to provide boys (to become eunuchs) from the Black Sea coast via Kaffa market. The Ventimiglia family of Genoa were the official slave agent to Cairo.

Like the British ‘divide & rule’ policy with Mughal rulers in India, Genoa exploited local conflicts to its benefit. Most crucially, perhaps, in 1352, during the Byzantine civil war, Genoa aided the Ottomans to cross the Dardanelles & take their 1st European possession.

Christopher Columbus provides a symbolic continuity between colonialism in the Levant & Americas. He was ‘from the Republic of Genoa’, but not necessarily Genoa itself. One theory holds he was in fact from Genoese Chios.



As well as an explorer he was also a pirate (the 2 careers went together back then). Just as England would later use privateers to hassle Spanish treasury convoys in the Caribbean, Genoa and Anjou used corsair navies to disrupt the Venetian muda convoys in the Med.

Venice did not have an equivalent to the Maona, preferring direct control of its Stato da Màr. It held Crete (Candia) from 1205 to 1667 & divided island into 6 sestieri just like their home city but later reformed this to 4 provinces.



Venetian rule never sat easily with the natives who were heavily taxed & saw most of their best produce shipped to Venice There were numerous uprisings. When a new tax to pay for Candia’s harbour was imposed in 1363 it triggered a Boston Tea Party moment: The Revolt of St Titus.

The figure of St.Titus became the emblem of the newly established Commune of Crete. Greeks were admitted to the councils of government, & restrictions on the ordination of Greek priests were abolished. But unlike 1776, the rebellious colony could not hold on to independence.

 
Venetian troops retook Candia within a year, but it took 5 before Crete was completely subdued. Venice celebrated with jousting in Piazza San Marco witnessed & recounted by Petrarch. Note that the Byzantine Emperor openly supported Venice & not his fellow Greek freedom fighters.

The Kallergis family were instrumental to the rebellion of 1363 & had been in previous revolts in 1282 & 1341. Later rebellions included the uprising of Sifis Vlastos in 1453. Ironically Venice used the Kallergis family to put down the Vlastos uprising.

Hagia Sophia and the little known last Divine Liturgy

"Some weeks before, Anna Notaras had wished that the candle of worship within Hagia Sophia might flame up one last time. Although she was herself absent that evening, the sound of voices raised in song came to her ear through the window of her room in the Rose Palace. She lay on her front, listening, silently weeping in joy and despair, while Zenobia gently rubbed balm into her wounded back. For the first time since its Latin desecration, the people had converged on the great church. Greek and Latin, Venetian and Genoese, side by side; united in a last solemn ceremony, a final plea to God. Stood among beggars and lords in the dark, lamp-lit basilica, John Grant watched with a quiet calm as no ritual was spared, no relic left unparaded. All had come. All, in their finest robes, to the mother church one final time. Ranks of soldiers, merchants and millers, fishermen and sailors, all joining their voices to rise and fall in the harmony of rhythmic chanting. The sound re-echoed from the walls and rose with the incense vapour, up, up, into the curving embrace of the dome. The gaunt emperor led a solemn procession beneath a banner of the two-headed eagle, joined by the Latin cardinal Isidore and all the local churchmen, absent Gennadius. It seemed at last that here the two halves of the faith were united; the great schism forgotten. The relic of the true cross was paraded, and soldiers kissed its silver casing, that it might instil divine strength to them for the hours ahead. Then, having taken the sacraments, the emperor fell to the floor and begged God to forgive all their transgressions. He bowed in all directions and took his leave, followed by Grant and the rest of the army, leaving behind a vigil that would continue through to dawn."  Chapter 32 of Porphyry & Ash begins with the service conducted on the night of the 28th May 1453 as the depleted Byzantine & Latin defenders prepare to face the final assault. That dawn vigil will of course be ended by Janissary bursting into the great church and within a matter of days it would be converted into a mosque.

As Erdogan seeks to turn Hagia Sophia from a museum back into a mosque, it would be understandable to think that the liturgy John Grant witnessed on the night of the 28th was the last one performed in Hagia Sophia, but this is not so. There is a little known historical footnote to the buildings history as a church. The last Byzantine Rite performed there took place just over a century ago, on the 19th January 1919. This is the story of a bold priest & a bubble in the Turkish control of Constantinople.

The Armistice of Mudros, signed on the deck of HMS Agamemnon, concluded the Ottoman empire’s involvement in WWI on 30 October 1918. Two weeks later French & British troops began the occupation of Constantinople. They would remain for 5 years until 4 October 1923 when Kemalist forces retook the city following the Treaty of Lausanne.

Meanwhile the Russian Civil war was underway. As part of the Allied intervention against the Bolsheviks, an international expeditionary force sailed to the Ukraine in early 1919 including two divisions of the Greek army.

On route, the fleet docked at Constantinople & the military chaplain of the Greek 2nd Division along with 4 officers determined to go ashore & perform the Divine Liturgy in Hagia Sophia – at the time still a functioning mosque.

The chaplain was Eleftherios Noufrakis (Father Lefteris) from Rethymno in Crete. He and the 4 officers hired a local Greek boatman to row them ashore and lead them quietly to the doors of Hagia Sophia. 

At the door, a guard asked in Turkish what they were trying to do, but with the city under occupation, he had little authority against allied officers.

Father Eleftherios moved quickly, identifying the location of the Sanctuary and the Holy Altar. Finding a small table, he put it into place, then opened his bag and took out everything needed for the Divine Liturgy. Then he put on his stole and began the first Byzantine rite in Hagia Sophia for 466 years.

As this went on, an incredulous crowd of local Muslims worshippers began to watch in silence. Lefteris placed the antimension on the table, to do the Proskomidi. He then took a small Holy Chalice out of his bag, as well as a paten, a knife & small prosphoron, even a bottle of wine. 

News of what was happening had spread around outside the building. The crowd was growing, both Turks & Greeks. The atmosphere was changing. Nonetheless the Divine Liturgy was completed without interruption.

As the five soldiers made to leave, the crowd began to shout. Outside they there attacked by one man with a stick but made it back to the boatman & were rowed to their ship. The incident caused a brief diplomatic ruckus. Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos appologised publicly but privately congratulated Lefteris.

Father Lefteris died in 1941 during the Nazi occupation of Crete. His monument can be seen in the village of Alones.