Πρώιμη ιστορική μαρτυρία για τις Κυδωνίες (1653)

Περίληψη

Kydonies or Aivali became widely known as one of the most important
educational and commercial centres in the Greek East in the first years of the
nineteenth century. However, apart from some vague oral traditions, almost
nothing certain was known about the earlier history of the town. In the present
study I edit and comment on a document dated 1653, and preserved in Cod.
Hierosolymitanus 509. It is a list of names of inhabitants of Kydonies who had
offered monetary contributions for the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
The list consists of 33 entries (corresponding to family units) in which 173
Christian and family names are mentioned. On the basis of this material, and
in correlation with similar entries of the codex from other communities of the
area, we may conclude that Kydonies had been a well established village of
considerable size by 1653. Its population consisted of immigrants from the
island of Lesbos mainly, but also from Chios as well as from neighbouring
Greek communities of Western Asia Minor, and —in a lesser percentage—
from Greece proper.