Dominations etrangeres et transformations de l' agriculture cretoise entre le XIVe et le XIX siecles

Abstract

The development and commercialization of the three main products
of Cretan agriculture (cereals, vine, olive oil) are seen in relation to
the economic policies of the two Powers (first. Venice and then the
Ottoman Empirei which successively dominated Crete.
The prime objective of these policies was not to act for the interests
of Cretan population but for those of the sovereign power.
Consequently we can observe that cereal crops and the commer­
cialization of grain were preponderant at the beginning of Venetian
domination; this corresponds to a period when, for various reasons,
the Republic badly needed cereals. Venice therefore encouraged these
crops until about the end of the XVth century.
Then, other factors arise. In the West, industry, expansion of interna
tional trade, merchant capitalism, towns are developing,constituting
the determining factors for the new agricultural policy adopted by
Venice with regard to its colonies; it is the time of monoculture. So
that Crete was all assigned to vine cultivation, the fast development
of which, during the XVIth century, enabled the island to export im
portant quantities of quality wines. It was during this period that
Crete expienced its greatest economic progress.
However, the international crisis at the end of the XVIth century and
Venetians' final loss of the island in the XVIIth century, caused
Cretan viticulture to regress. Vine henceforth was to play a secondary
part. For a number of reasons due to the economic policy of the Ot
toman Empire, we can observe at the same period the development of
olive-growing. Olive oil was to become the most important trade in
the XVIII th and XIXth centuries.