Rural Social Inequality in Nineteenth-Century Greece: Agricultural Wealth and Farming Income in the Southern Peloponnese (1830)

Abstract

This article forms a part of a research project on agricultural wealth and farming income in the southern Peloponnese, as attested by a series of land surveys undertaken at the end of the Greek Revolution in territories controlled by the administration of Greek Governor Ioannis Kapodistrias in 1830. The article argues that the 1830 land survey forms an important primary source, unparalleled for nineteenth-century Greece, that so far has not been exploited by historians. Drawing evidence from a sample consisting of a number
of rural communities in the provinces of Agios Petros (modern North Kynouria) and Arkadiá (modern Trifyllia), the article discusses wealth and income inequality in early nineteenth-century rural Greece, challenging the prevailing view of an egalitarian society with little discernible social differences.