Abstract
This paper examines the persistent food shortages in the island of Crete under Venetian rule (1204–1669) through the prism of the monetary system of Venetian territories and in combination with the other economic policies of the Venetian empire. From the available sources and analysis, it seems that the policies of Venice which prioritised the food security of the metropolis, the financial support to the elites, and the elite-favouring monetary and taxation system were contradictory and self-defeating. In particular, the monetary structure of the colonial economy and the taxation system seem to have been forcing both Cretans and Venetian settlers to produce wine for export instead of grain despite the repeated food shortages. The parallel circulation of various high-value (white money) and low-value (black money) currencies in the same economy and the insistence of the Venetian administration to receive taxes in white money seems to have been consistently undermining the food security policy adopted by the same authorities. The paper contributes to the discussion of how parallel currencies can stabilise an economy or can create structural destabilisation propensities, depending on coeval economic structures that usually go unexamined when we examine monetary instruments.
Highlights
IntroductionThe problem of food shortages in Crete is one of the major findings far, and it seems to be linked one way or another to monetary and taxation policies along with the policies of Venice concerning grain production and food security
Risk and Financial Management 14: 151.This paper belongs to a greater ongoing research project which investigates the monetary policies of imperial Venice in one of its colonies, Crete island
The persistence of food shortages was the result of the choices made by the Venetian colonisers who wanted to acquire wealth from their colony through all their policies: their prohibition of cultivation in the rebel plains to crash the anticolonial resistance; their monetary system that was bringing huge profits to Venice and Venetian elites; their taxation system, which was designed against their subjects; their trade policy, which favoured the wealthiest among the dwellers of Crete and the metropolis over the colonies; their grain policy, which aimed at reducing any attempt of the colonies to ask for better prices or for more political independence; and their agricultural policy, which was based on the devalued labour of serfs and peasants, including slave labour (Gasparis 1994; Tsougarakis 1990)
Summary
The problem of food shortages in Crete is one of the major findings far, and it seems to be linked one way or another to monetary and taxation policies along with the policies of Venice concerning grain production and food security. Crete island is situated in the centre of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and is one of the major islands of the entire region with a very mild and diversified climate It has both the environmental and the geopolitical conditions not to falter in food production either through local production or through regional trade, unless, there is such a disaster that affects the entire region.
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