1. The Cambridge and Bradford Boeotia Expedition has been supported by an annual grant from the British Academy, with additional generous assistance from the British School of Archaeology in Athens and the Universities of Cambridge and Bradford. Its joint directors are Dr. J.L. Bintliff, University of Bradford, and Professor A.M. Snodgrass, University of Cambridge. The authors wish to express their gratitude and indebtedness to the directors and to all other participants in the project.

2. The surface survey method was chosen as a response to some of the problems of contemporary Greek archaeology. It is especially suited to Boeotia — in classical times a federation of city states — because it works against the common bias towards a single urban centre. It also allows, of course, a correction of the tendency to concentrate on urban rather than rural settlements, and this is important for such an area as Boeotia, which is and has been for millennia reliant on agriculture. It goes without saying that relations between country and town are crucial. The fact that Boeotia was an area relatively neglected by archaeology has also been taken into account. Cf. the report by Bintliff and Snodgrass on the first five years’ work of the Expedition in Journal of Field Archaeology, July 1985.

3. Present-day and recent population figures of Boeotia and its communities are derived from national censuses since 1851, from the estimates made in travellers’ accounts, from documents in local administration offices, and from histories of the area. We have obtained the complete pre-census returns for the villages of Mavrommati and Palio-Panagia for the 1981 Agricultural Section of the Population Census. This constitutes an invaluable data-base, containing very detailed information on population, property, and family structure, submitted by each individual household (a total of some 700). We have also, for Mavrommati, complete name-list and summary returns at village level for the 1971 census. Mavrommati parish registers give the complete record of male births since 1851, with information on place of origin of spouses, occupation, age, family connections etc. (Censuses of Population 1851–1931, Athens; Censuses of Population E.S.Y.E. (National Statistical Office of Greece) Athens 1951, 1961, 1971).

On our first field trip we discovered the virtually discarded records of a complete ‘cadastral’ survey made of 19 communities (including all those in our survey area) in 1955, the purpose being to levy a small percentage tax for maintenance of the ‘Rural Guard’ in the area. Every single landholder in every community was questioned and entries made for name, father’s name, residence, occupation, and amount of land owned in various crop categories (basically, olives, vines, wheat and vegetables needing irrigation). From the 1955 data we extracted a stratified sample of peasant owners (stratified, that is, by size of holding) for the villages of Bagia, Mavrommati, Palio-Panagia, Neochori, Thespiae, Leontari, and Xironomi. This produced a list of 160 proprietors. We then went to each village and traced the evolution of the family property and the family members.

Sources:

Unpublished data from Census of Population 1981 (E.S.Y.E.) Agricultural Section.

Parish Registers 1841–1981, located in Town Hall, Mavrommati and in the one church of Mavrommati.

Administration documents, located in Town Hall, Mavrommati, not systematically filed.

1955 Cadastral Records — location, Rural Guard Office, Thebes. Destroyed by Government order, 1984.

See also: Deltion, 1963,1968,1973,1978,1980. E.S.Y.E., Athens. Deltion, Agricultural Chamber of Attica-Boeotia. Athens 1930.

Travellers:

Clarke, E.D., Travels (London 1818).Google Scholar

Dodwell, E., A Classical and Geographical tour through Greece during the years 1801,1805 and 1806 (London 1819).Google Scholar

Farrer, R.R.., A Tour in Greece, 1880 (London 1882).Google Scholar

Gell, W., The Itinerary of Greece, containing routes in Attica, Boeotia, Phocis, Locris and Thessaly (London 1819).Google Scholar

Hughes, J., Travels in Greece and Albania (1812) (London 1835, 1857).Google Scholar

Mahaffy, J.P., Rambles and Studies in Greece (1876) (London 1887).Google Scholar

Mure, W., Journal of a Tour in Greece and the Islands (London 1842).Google Scholar

Pouqueville, F.C.H.L., Voyage de la Grèce (Paris 1816).Google Scholar

Simopoulos, K., Pos idan e xeni taxidiotes tin Ellada toy ‘21 (Athens 1980)Google Scholar; Xeni taxidiotes stin Ellada (Athens 1975).

Thiersch, F., E Ellada tou Kapodistria (first published Athens 1833).Google Scholar

Wheler, G.G., A Journey Into Greece (with A. Spon) (London 1689).Google Scholar

Wyse, T., Impressions of Greece (London 1786).Google Scholar

Histories:

Hiotis, P., Peri tis katastaseos tis bambakokalliergias en ti peripheria Levadias (Piraeus 1931)Google Scholar; Peri tis kniseos tou bambakos kai ton lipteon metron (Piraeus 1931).

Loukas-Fanopoulos, G., Thiva kai Livadia, horike kai horaite sto ‘21 (Athens 1976) 2 vols.Google Scholar

Papaleontiou, D.G., E Elea en ti eparchia Thivon (Athens 1934).Google Scholar

Tsevas, G., Istoria ton Thivon kai tis Boiotias (Athens 1928).Google Scholar

4. For one year, 1978, we have a complete picture of the occupations of males in Mavrommati. For other years a reasonably accurate estimate can be made from the returns of the kinotis to higher administrative bodies. (Copies in Town Hall, Mavrommati, unfiled). We have in addition the material extracted from 200 interview returns.

5. The materials listed in notes 1 and 2 above, and especially the returns for the 1981 census, are useful, together with the information contained in kinotis returns to the Ministry of Agriculture (area for each crop, volume of production, livestock, machinery, other occupations of cultivators). Detailed information is also available on agricultural and craft production and number of enterprises. Mechanisation can be comprehensively described from several sources (see below). A body of some 40 individual farm budgets has been collected, together with information supplied by agronomists and other experts on cost of production of the main crops.

Sources:

Kinotis of Mavrommati,

‘Census of agricultural and livestock holdings’ 1961 (unpublished)

‘Census of buildings’, 1960.

‘Census of establishments’, 1969.

‘Correspondence 1949–1981’ (official and unofficial).

‘List of landowners and landownership from the 1971 census’, 1971.

‘Mavrommati residents fully employed in agriculture’, 1969.

‘Non-agricultural proprietorships’, 1968.

‘Properties of the kinotis’ (land and buildings), 1969.

‘Structure of local employment by age groups’, 1973.

‘Tax list for animals’, years 1952–53, 1953–54, 1954–55, 1955–56.

‘Tax list for crops’, years 1946–47, 1947–48, 1948–49, 1949–50, 1950–51, 1951–52, 1952–53, 1953–54.

(Mavrommati and Kopais in two different categories). ‘Tax list for olive trees’, years, 1949–50, 1953–54.

Ministry of Agriculture (Boeotia Branch).

‘Apologismos georgikou programmatos etous 1979 ke stohiepithioxis etous 1980’ (Report on the agricultural programme of 1979, targets and pursuits for 1980) (Levadia 1980).

Also ‘Apologismos… 1980’ (Levadia 1981).

‘Prices of various agricultural products and machinery: years 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981’ (Levadia 1981).

‘Production and land cultivated for various crops: years 1978, 1979, 1980’ (Levadia 1981).

6. We have obtained the figures for distribution to village communities of the land of the drained Lake Kopais (1955), and we have in addition the detailed individual list for Mavrommati. This completes our picture of landholding in the middle-1950s, and also provides a valuable check against interview responses concerning individual property and inheritance. We have some (not complete) material on subsequent sales and renting of this land by individuals. There is also material on the operation of farming and irrigation on Kopais, as well as on the relation between Kopais cultivators and the market, particularly by food-processing companies which are located at Haliartos. See:

Ephimeris tis kiverniseos tou vassiliou tis Elladas, Nos 195, 232 and 291 (1953) (Athens 1953) and No. 133 (1960) (Athens 1960).

Kopaidas, Organismos, E. Kopaida se heria Ellinika (Haliartos 1958).Google Scholar

Kopais Organisation, Original Kopais Land Distribution List (Mavrommati n.d.); and General Distribution List to villages (Haliartos n.d.) (location Kopais Organisation, Haliartos).

Kanaginis, P. To kopaidikon zitima (Athens 1929).Google Scholar

Roussis, N. ‘Se Anazitisi “Chrisis Tomis” ya tin ardefsi tis Kopaidas’, Ekonomikos Tachydromos 1224 (Athens 1977).Google Scholar

7. Annual records and accounts contained in the offices of the co-operatives of Mavrommati, Bagia and Palio-Panagia.

8. In addition to the traditional (agricultural, craft and local service) occupations, thousands of men and women from the villages of Central and Eastern Boeotia are employed as wage-workers in the factories of the Thebes industrial area. Factories just outside Thebes, built since the mid-1960’s, mostly by multinational companies and their Greek subsidiaries (Tupperware, Ideal Standard, etc.), now employ over 18,000 workers, and factory buses travel to and from nearly all of the villages in the area, with workers on more than one shift. Interviews have been recorded with the managers of the main factories as well as with workers from several villages, and information has been collected from trade unions and local authorities on the nature and impact of the industrialisation. See:

Boiotias, Nomarchia: protaseis chorotaxikis organesis (synoptike Skedio domikon parapraseon) (Athens March 1984)Google Scholar;

Ypiresia Programmatismon: Ekthesi, Nomou Boiotias, 1983–1987 (Livadia, 18 June 1982).

In addition, see unpublished lists of employees at all factories in the area, trade union general office, Thebes.

9. Our observations and interviews provide the basis for an account of political affiliations and changes in the village of Mavrommati, and in relation to regional political developments in Boeotia. Our visits have spread over the last years of Karamanlis’ ‘New Democracy’ Government, the rise of Pasok, and the election and first year of the Pasok Government. Recent local results and statistics for local and general elections for 1977; 1981 and 1982 (October) are sufficiently detailed to be very useful in this analysis. (These are recorded and kept in the Town Hall, Mavrommati, in the office of the Town Clerk).

10. Other participants in the Expedition’s work are now specialising in earlier history. We have confined ourselves, apart from a survey of the material concerning the original settlement of the Albanian-speaking communities (ca. 1380 A.D.), to the 19th and 20th-century historical background. There is a great deal of material available from travellers’ and other observers’ accounts (see Note 3, above). In addition, there is the material now in process of being edited and published on the post-War of Independence land-allotment, (cf. Loukas-Fanopoulos, op.cit., note 3 above) We are systematically collating all material relevant to the villages and our survey area in recent historical publications, though this is very sparse and the project awaits the analysis of a historian proper, to begin in the near future.

11. Miller, W.Cf. The Latins in the Levant (London 1908) 317 Google Scholar; idem, Essays in the Latin Orient (London 1921) 129, and Biris, K., Arvanites, oi Dorieis tou neoterou Ellenismou (Athens 1960) 89.Google Scholar

12. Katounda. In Durham (see note 14) and Biris, op. cit., the word Katoun (Katun) is said to refer both to a band of herdsman and to a given pastoral territory (hence Katunar, head of a Katun). However Katouna occurs in the 10th century and earlier, in Greece, to refer to a military encampment. See, e.g., Cecaumeni Strategicon et incerti scriptoris De Officiis Regiis Libellus, edd. B. Wassiliewsky, V. Jernstedt (St. Petersburg 1896/Amsterdam 1965), 11¹¹; Cange, Du, Glossarium ad Scriptores mediae et infimae Graecitatis (Leyden 1688/Paris 1943) s.v., 623.Google Scholar

13. Kollega. One of several terms used for forms of sharecropping in Ottoman times. cf.Ayanoglou, P., Toperasma apo tifeodarchiasto kapitalisimo stin Etlada (Athens 1982)Google Scholar. One may still hear the expression: ‘he works like a kollega’. C. Moskof, Esagogiki stin istoria tou kinimatos tis ergatikis taxeos (Thessaloniki 1979) G. Tsopotos Ghi kai georgoitis Thessalias kata tin Tourkokratian (Volos 1912).

14. Many place-names in Boeotia are Albanian, some taken from the names of Albanian soldiers, etc. e.g. Kapareli, from Kaparelis, Kakosi, from Kakosis (‘cock’ in Albanian), Mazi, from Mazis (‘head’ i.e. ‘top’ in Albanian), Kasnesi, from Kasnesis (though a possibility is the common Albanian place-name Kashnjeti, from kashnja, chestnut ( cf.Durham, M.E., Some Tribal Origins, Law and Customs of the Balkans (London 1928) 234 Google Scholar). The Albanian now spoken is a late form, incorporating many Greek words.

15. Biris, op. cit.

16. E.D. Clarke, Travels, Part II, London 1818.

17. General Report of the Commission appointed at Athens to examine into Financial Condition of Greece, presented to House of Commons (London 1860).

18. Farrer, op. cit; Mahaffy, op. cit.

19. Great Britain Consular Report No. 1112 (London 1891).

21. Palaiologos, G., Georgike kai oikiake oikonomia (Nauplion 1833).Google Scholar

Asdrachas, S., ‘Pragmatikotites apo ton Elliniko 18o aiona’, Epoches 13 (May 1964).Google Scholar

22. McGrew, W.W., Land and Revolution in Greece, 1821–71 (University of Cincinnatti, Ph.D. Thesis, 1980) 184.Google Scholar

23. Loukas-Fanopoulos, op. cit., note 3 above.

24. Loukas-Fanopoulos, op. cit.

25. Loukas-Fanopoulos, op. cit.

26. Loukas-Fanopoulos, op. cit.

27. Loukas-Fanopoulos, op. cit.

28. Loukas-Fanopoulos, op. cit.

29. McGrew, op. cit., note 22 above.

30. Loukas-Fanopoulos, op. tit.

31. Law of June 24, 1842 (Govt. Gazette No. 20, June 28, 1843, p.88), cited by McGrew, op. cit., 348.

32. Agricultural Bank of Greece (intro. by A. Pepelasis) 1981.

33. McGrew, op. cit., Ch. XIII.

34. McGrew, op. cit., Ch. XIII, and cf.Clogg, R., History of Modem Greece (London 1982).Google Scholar

35. McGrew, op. cit., 50–78.

36. Ibid., Ch. XI.

37. Ibid., Ch. XIII.

38. Ibid.

39. McGrew, op. cit., 450, and cf. Ch. VII.

40. Cf.Evelpidis, C., La réforme agraire en Grèce (Athens 1926)Google Scholar passim, and Alivisatos, B., La réforme agraire en Grèce (Paris 1932)Google Scholar passim.

41. Cf. the detailed British Government reports and papers cited by Romilly Jenkins in his The Dilessi Murders (London 1961).

42. Taken from interviews.

43. British Consular Report No. 3302, on the Finances, economic progress and agriculture of Greece for the year 1904.

44. McGrew, Ch. XI.

45. Ibid., Ch. IV.

46. Ibid.

47. Kopaidas, Organismos, E Kopais se heria ellinika (Haliartos 1958)Google Scholar and Short Review of the History and Work of the Lake Kopais Company Ltd. (Athens 1951).

48. Ibid.

49. Sideris, A.P., E georgiki politiki tis Ellados kata tin lixasan ekc tondaetian, 1833–1933 (Athens 1934) 349–351.Google Scholar

50. Ibid,, 351.

51. Kanaginis, P., To Kopaidikon Zitima (Athens 1929).Google Scholar

52. Letter of the Kopais Company to the kinotis of Mavrommati saying that it would not pay cultivation tax for 1946 (21.11.50). In the same letter, settlement of payments for 1947, 1948 and 1949 is agreed (cf. files of Kopais Company, Haliartos).

53. Organismos Kopaidos, op. tit., note 47 above.

54. Ibid.

55. Hiotis, P., Peri tis kriseos tou bambakos kai ton lipteon metron (Piraeus 1931) art II, pp. 14–23.Google Scholar

56. Papaleontiou, op. cit., 45.

57. Kopais Organisation, Original Kopais Land Distribution List (Mavrommati n.d.) (See note 6 above).

58. Ephimeris lis kiverniseos tou vassiliou tis Ellados, Nos. 195 (31.7.53), 232 and 291 (27.9.1953).

59. Organismos Kopaidos, op. cit., note 47 above.

60. Kopais Organisation, Original Kopais Land Distribution List (Mavrommati n.d.).

61. Interviews with local officials, 1982.

62. Interviews with local officials and cultivators, August 1982.

63. Data taken from the Rural Guard (Cadastral Records) Registry of 1955–56, Thebes (see note 3 above).

64. Vergopoulos, K., Ethnismos kai ekonomiki anaptiki (Athens 1978)Google Scholar; and, To agrotiko zitima stin Ellada (Athens 1975).

65. See note 63 above, and note.

66. Mavrommati Parish Registers, see note 3 above.

67. Ibid.

68. Ibid.

69. E.S.Y.E. Deltion (1980) (see note 3 above).

70. Calculation from the original returns of the cultivators for the 1981 census. E.S.Y.E. Apograph! Georgias — ktinotrofias tis 15es Martiou, 1981 (Ademosiefta Stoicheia).

71. N. Roussis. ‘Se anazitisi “chrisis tomis” yia tin ardefsi tis Kopaidas’, Ekonomiko Tachydromos 1224 (20.10.1977).

72. Interviews with cultivators at Hani (Thebes plain) August 1980 and August 1982.

73. See note 68 above.