GreekForumer wrote:Although the small landholdings of the peasants were heavily taxed, the ending of serfdom changed the lives of the island's ordinary people.
So what government services did the peasants get in return for the "taxes" paid ?
Hospitals, libraries, child care, public transport (donkeys) ?
A muhtar (village leader) and a kadi (judge) who in cases of disputes between Christians and muslims the muslim was always assumed to have ALL rights.
Like I said it was better for everyone to be a sort of slave under the feudal system of the Latins, than be sort of millet worker but 3rd class citizen risking your life everyday according to the mood of the local pasha.
Just continuing from where I left in comparing like for like, the Ionian islands of Greece which were under the Latins flourished so much that they even had a UNIVERSITY by the mid of 1700's. (The Kapodistrion if my memory serves correct there where from many writters and poets and other intellectuals came including Dionysios Solomos? who wrote the Greek national anthem)
What did the rest of Greece have, what did Cyprus have under the Ottomans?Almost nothing....
