Lordship of Chios
| Lordship of Chios Χίος |
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| Autonomous lordship under Byzantine suzerainty | |||||
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| Capital |
Chios 40°38′N 22°57′E / 40.633°N 22.950°ECoordinates: 40°38′N 22°57′E / 40.633°N 22.950°E |
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| Government | Feudal lordship | ||||
| Lord | |||||
| • | 1304–1307 | Benedetto I Zaccaria | |||
| • | 1314–1329 | Martino Zaccaria | |||
| Historical era | Middle Ages | ||||
| • | Established | 1304 | |||
| • | Reconquest by the Byzantines | 1329 | |||
| • | Capture of Chios by the Genoese | 1354 | |||
| Today part of |
 Greece
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The Lordship of Chios was a short-lived autonomous lordship run by the Genoese Zaccaria family. Its core was the eastern Aegean island of Chios, and in its height it encompassed a number of other islands off the shore of Asia Minor. Although theoretically a vassal of the Byzantine Empire, the Zaccaria ruled the island as a practically independent domain from its capture in 1304 until the Byzantines recovered it, with the support of the local Greek population, in 1329.
The lordship was founded in 1304, when the Genoese noble Benedetto I Zaccaria captured the Byzantine island of Chios. Benedetto, who was already lord of Phocaea on the coast of Asia Minor, justified his act to the Byzantine court as necessary to prevent the island's capture by Turkish pirates. The Byzantine emperor, Andronikos II Palaiologos, impotent to intervene militarily, accepted the fait accompli and granted him the island as a fief, initially for a period of 10 years, but which was then renewed at five-year intervals. Benedetto died in 1307 and was succeeded in Chios by his son, Paleologo Zaccaria. When he died childless in 1314, the island passed to Martino and his brother, Benedetto II. Chios was a small but wealthy domain, with an annual income of 120,000 gold hyperpyra. Over the next few years, Martino made it the core of a small realm encompassing several islands off the shore of Asia Minor, including Samos and Kos. Martino, with his small army and fleet, achieved considerable successes against the Turkish pirates, and won praise by his Latin contemporaries, the Pope, and Philip II, the titular Latin emperor of Constantinople, who in 1325 named him "King and Despot of Asia Minor".
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Wikipedia