Sources for the Latin Dominions in the Greek Territories

The written sources for the Latin dominions in the Greek territories fall into two broad categories: narrative sources and archival documents. The narrative sources comprise the chronicles and histories of the period, travel accounts, and geographical descriptions, often accompanied by cartographic material. However, for the geographical and chronological scope addressed by the Research Area, the predominant category is that of archival documents. These may be further divided into two principal subcategories: public administrative documents and notarial registers. Among these, a distinction is made between those issued in the political and administrative centre of the respective dominion or within another overarching political authority, and those produced locally within the Greek territories. The public administrative documents encompass a wide variety of types, reflecting the multiplicity of offices and officials responsible for their issuance.

The current research activity of the Research Area focuses on the study and dissemination of unpublished written sources, both archival and narrative, relating to the Greek territories under Venetian rule. The distinctly bureaucratic character of the Venetian state from the thirteenth century onwards, in both the metropole and its overseas possessions, led to the production of a vast number of public and notarial documents. These are preserved today in the State Archives of Venice, as well as in the local archives of the Ionian Islands. This exceptionally rich material —unique for the history of the Greek territories and written in medieval Latin, Italian, or Greek— is being brought to light and made accessible to the broader scholarly community through the publication of the texts themselves, as well as through the integration of their content into structured digital formats within specialised databases and other digital applications.