The conquest of the empire by the Crusaders in 1204, and the subsequent division of the Byzantine territories affected the agrarian economy as it did other aspects of economic organization, and economic life. These territories split among small Greek and Latin states, lost much of the cohesion they may have had: the Byzantine state could not function as a unifying force, and, in the thirteenth century, there was very little to replace it.
[83] The thirteenth century is the last period, during which one may speak of significant land clearance, that is, the act of bringing previously uncultivated land into cultivation. But the progressive impoverishment of the peasantry, entailed the decline of a certain aggregate demand, and resulted in a concentration of resources in the hands of large landowners, who must have had considerable surpluses.
[84]
The demographic expansion came to an end in the course of the fourteenth century, during which a deterioration of the status of
paroikoi, an erosion of the economic function of village by the role of the large estates, and a precipitous demographic decline in
Macedonia is established by modern research.
[85] The upper levels of the aristocracy lost their fortunes, and eventually there was a concentration of property on the hands of the larger, and more privileged monasteries, at least in Macedonia. The monasteries did not show great versatility or innovative spirit, and the rural economy had to wait, for its recovery, until the effects of epidemics had been reversed, security had been established, and communications restored: that is, until the firm establishment of the
Ottomans in the Balkans.
[84]