Migration and Ethnicity in the Venetian Territories of the Eastern Mediterranean (13th to 15th Century)

Human geographic mobility is a diachronic phenomenon, the goal of which is the security and/or betterment of life for those on the move.1 Following the major migrations in Europe in the early Middle Ages, those of the late medieval period were less massive and decisive, and stemmed from different causes. The group or individual population movements in the period and place under examination here may be assigned to two large categories: (a) movements owed to violence (e.g. wars, political persecutions, or natural phenomena and diseases), which aimed primarily to seek security in a new place, and (b) those owed to living conditions and the economic environment, which aimed at improving migrants’ living conditions. While there is geographic mobility in both cases, that in the first category could be characterized in contemporary terms as “refugee movement” and as more or less massive, while that in the second may be characterized as “migration”, and is normally by individuals. Refugees leave their home voluntarily or involuntarily due to lifethreatening political or military violence. The migrant, also compelled by specific ( normally, economic) circumstances, voluntarily leaves his home in search of better living conditions and life prospects. However, those who move to further improve and enrich themselves, even though their living conditions are not as bad, are also characterized as migrants. One category of displaced persons included by contemporary scholars among migrants were prisoners of war and slaves