Wine Production and Trade on Euboea from the Twelfth to the First Half of the Fifteenth Century

Although viticulture was widespread in the Eastern Mediterranean, some of its areas possessed a special “wine” reputation. The island of Euboea was among such centers. This article attempts to analyze the state of wine production and wine trade on Euboea from the twelfth to first half of the fifteenth century, in the period when the island was ruled by Byzantium, the Latin triarchs, and Venice. The research is based on Byzantine narratives, decrees of the Venetian Senate, and archaeological data. The author concludes that the twelfth to thirteenth centuries were a time of prosperity for winemaking on the island and that the Latin conquest of Euboea in the early-thirteenth century did not fundamentally affect this sector of economy. Greeks remained the main population group on the island keeping their traditional lifestyle and occupations. In the fourteenth century, wine export continued. In the years of the Venetian rule of the island, called Negroponte by Latin sources, in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, local wine production and wine trade experienced a decline. This was largely due to the general deterioration of agriculture in Euboea in connection with the growing Turkish threat and burdensome Venetian taxes, which generally resulted in the demographic decline and economic downfall. Under the circumstances, the retail trade in wine, its protection from external competition, and the attraction of new settlers to Euboea to revive wine production became main objectives in Venice’s economic policy towards its colony. Although this policy had a positive effect in the 1430s and 1440s, it did not change the economic situation on the island in the long term

Fifteenth · Greeks · Population · Prosperity · Wine · Winemaking · Eurasian Exchange Networks · Horticultural and Viticultural Research · Medieval History and Crusades

• Reading social change on a potter's wheel

  Open Access•Nikos D Kontogiannis, Stefania S Skartsis•Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies•2021

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